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Body Cells Carry Emotional Memory
Body Cells Carry Emotional Memory
By Boris Prilutsky
I found the theory that body cells carry emotional memories to be a true one. During my 38 years of clinical experience, numerous times I have witnessed the emotional reactions of my patients/clients to soft tissue mobilization. To more clearly explain this phenomenon, I would like to share one of my most interesting clinical experiences with you that support the theory of emotional memory being carried body cells.
Over 20 years ago, I treated one of the world-renowned boxers of the time from a shoulder injury. The right shoulder had a severe sprain/strain case with suspicion of possible rotator cuff tear. As with all such cases, after 24 hours of cold application procedures (cold application must be applied no more than 10-15 minutes and must be repeated every two hours) we started intensive massage therapy on the unaffected side in order to awake vasomotor reflex that will express by increasing blood supply to the injured extremities. I began to follow the treatment protocol for the above-mentioned purposes, starting to mobilize all groups of rotator cuff muscles layer by layer, as well as the anterior, posterior, and middle part of the deltoid muscles. As he was receiving the massage therapy, suddenly this big, tough, extremely strong man started crying, vocalizing sounds like that of a little boy. He was confused and expressed his embarrassment at breaking down in tears.
Being familiar with the theory that body cells carry emotional memory, I suggested to him to cry out whatever this emotional memory was. The sport clinical psychologist was informed of the incident. During his evaluation, this professional athlete, with the help of the psychologist, recovered a memory from his deep subconscious of an event that happened to him when he was eight years old.
Briefly, the story was that the boy's grandfather (his mother's father) once interrupted the constant fight between the boy's father and alcoholic mother; his grandfather attacked his father with a hammer. Afterward, the father was delivered in critical condition to the hospital and the grandfather was arrested. During this period of time, the little boy future boxing champion fell, off his bicycle and hurt his left shoulder. Crying, he came to his mom who was screaming into the phone, and asked her to comfort him because of the pain in his shoulder. His mother reacted in anger, and took his pleas as just whining for attention and she hit him with the phone a few times on this painful shoulder. All these years, on a subconscious level, this man carried difficult baggage of these memories of events related to losing the most important people in his life; his grandfather and father; and related to rejection by his mother. This kind of crying, emotional release tremendously helped this athlete to get rid of this subconscious trauma. This heavy emotional baggage was terribly disturbing and robbed him of a lot of happiness all these years, without him even knowing it existed. My experience has taught me that usually these emotional releases happen with people at the time when we perform massage (including deep tissue mobilization) in the inhibitory regime. Please be aware that emotional release may not be expressed by crying. Many clients may report to you that they have trouble sleeping and experience worry, or they may start shaking during the massage. Some of them will report unusual emotional sensitivity. Please explain to your clients that all above-mentioned reactions are very positive reactions and within the next few days of going through these reactions, they will feel a great deal better. Regarding the boxer whose case I presented to you, he later reported to me that he never thought that this subconscious baggage could destroy the quality and happiness of his life so much. He told me that thanks to this innocent massage therapy on the healthy shoulder, he was able to find peace within himself.
It's reasonable to assume that the memory of the emotional experience is stored somewhere in the brain - the system that is specialized in memory handling and remained inaccessible, as many other memories a human being experiencing during the life. But the shoulder cells hold the bookmark or a memory address of where the actual memories of the incident were stored in the brain. Thus by activating the shoulder cell you triggered the process of loading the content of that remote memory in the active memory, causing the aforementioned reaction.
As you can see from this episode, clinical psychology approach alone wouldn't be sufficient, because of the emotional memories carried by the cells of his body. Presently, I receive professional referrals from clinical psychologists.
Dear colleagues, I would like to encourage you to contact clinical psychologists in your neighborhoods and to offer them your services to incorporate massage therapy in their treatments. The Latin word "doctor" means educator. After being involved in many cases,at US it is clear to me that we should educate not only our clients about the power and importance of massage therapy, but also other health care practitioners.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ravensara Travillian on
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Cheers, Ty :).
I think your previous comment about knowing our scope and limitations was spot-on. I especially appreciated your point about not telling our clients what they should or will feel--that was well-taken.
Ty Capuano said:''Oh, please, Raven, do expend another thousand words teaching us things we don't have a need to know"..Gary W Addis
Now that's rude. You may not "have a need to know", but there are others that believe they do. Personally I would like very much to hear what Ravensara has to say on this or any other topic.
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"(and don't boil me alive in a test tube if I am wrong)"
:) hehehe
"It is fine to do research and find that an explanation used by many is indeed false. But that is a far cry from finding that the technique used is not effective. It does mean that more research is needed to understand the why (if one feels a need to know)."
I agree. If we can show that we help people, and are open to what the mechanism might be found to be, that outweighs the value of keeping a death grip on an old explanation that hasn't held up to examination.
I think we need to have confidence in ourselves that our work is of value to our clients. If we look for validation only from one mechanism and no other, then if that mechanism is ever invalidated, there goes our confidence. But if we have our own confidence, we can weather changes in knowledge.
I'd like to see us being more confident that we provide value to our clients, rather than fighting about trying to hold on to every single idea ever had about massage. Some ideas have to be discarded or updated; that in no way means massage is wrong or disproven, just that we are beginning to better understand it, and will continue to do so.
cheers,
Raven
Daniel Cohen said:
I thought you made very good commentary. Like you, I believe (and don't boil me alive in a test tube if I am wrong) I am more interested in the results I get than the terminology. I am good at what I do (evidence base = average 33+ massages a week). I am not a researcher and have barely time to make notes regarding my clients. But I welcome the research being done to try and establish why massage works. As for disproving effectiveness that has over and over proven effective it is, in my opinion, wasted effort in a pointless debate. Semantic debate is a game that serves none of us. It is fine to do research and find that an explanation used by many is indeed false. But that is a far cry from finding that the technique used is not effective. It does mean that more research is needed to understand the why (if one feels a need to know).
Gary W Addis said:
Sigh. A long, heartfelt sigh. Did you overlook my statement (I've made it several times) that *regardless of the mechanism* [the effect is that] muscles have memories? Your prejudice against the phraseology compels you to refute any few words that preclude or precede the words "muscles have memories." Ma'am, I am referring *to the result, not to the methodology*. As a competitive bodybuilder (quite successful, BTW) for nearly two decades and a certified personal trainer for ten years, I don't give a rat's behind HOW: it's the results that count, out here in the real world.
Although it had taken ten years of growing, during a three-year hiatus from the gym, I lost forty pounds of muscle; in six short weeks, I regained all but three pounds of the lost forty----- muscle memory----by whatever methodology, the body knew that, to survive, it had to quickly regrow the lost muscle. Now, textbooks claim that kind of muscle gain so rapidly is impossible. I can send you the dated before and after photos (standing beside me in the after photo is the 1st pl trophy I won in the Masters Class of the IFBB South American Bodybuilding Championships of 1986). Due to something happening in the areas of the brain you mentioned? why would I need to know that? My knowledge of the brain is limited to what I needed for my exams. I can list all twelve cranial nerves and their duties; I can label the brain itself. More importantly, if you tell me where it hurts, I'll know what muscles to test... I am studying to become a massage therapist, and I plan to become a very, very good massage therapist.
Once more just to annoy you: MUSCLES DO HAVE MEMORIES. Whether the memory is stored in brain or in the heel of your foot, the effect is exactly the same.
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Permalink Reply by Gary W Addis, LMT on
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Raven said: "Boris is making very specific claims about HOW, though, and teaching those claims as fact, which is why this is the topic of the thread."
I haven't read anywhere that he said HOW, precisely. He said, in-eloquently perhaps, that however it happens, the shoulder cells remembered and reacted to the memory of the childhood trauma. In effect, that is what happened in the case he related. What does it matter if, in a clinical sense, massaging the shoulder caused a synapse to fire in his mind that brought forth the memory of the emotional pain he felt due to the perceived rejection by his mother?
I was a spoiled little boy, sickly and petted to the detriment of my older siblings. While my father was recuperating on Okinawa from a Korean war wound, during a phone call he asked to the room at large whether Gary is still a crybaby--to this day, I hate talking on a telephone. My memory of the event is not suppressed. Boris's boxer client repressed his memory, and the massage by whatever methodology, brought it out to the light of day. Semantics...meaning. Judgmental, to what purpose, when I think you knew all along precisely what his *meaning* was?
"Once more just to annoy you: MUSCLES DO HAVE MEMORIES. Whether the memory is stored in brain or in the heel of your foot, the effect is exactly the same."
Really, I'm not annoyed. Eppur si muove*, baby. You can deny neuroanatomy all you want; it isn't any less true for all that.
AHHH, please point out to me exactly when I denied neuroanatomy. To the contrary, I think I pointed out that even nuclear physicists admit to not knowing the innermost secrets of Life.
I will, however, point out that Boris has just fulfilled the first half of my testable hypothesis. In response to a normal question that any self-proclaimed academic can expect to be asked at any time, he just called me "dishonest" again.
Because you keep relying on semantics to cloud the issue, attacking words rather than the gist of the argument. Which is, BTW, your argument as well. I think several bystanders to this blog have peered through the smog, and recognize that fact.
Once again, I reiterate that Boris' entire article can be boiled down to a few words: that massage, by whatever mechanism, often causes emotional responses in clients...that massage for that and all the other reasons can be beneficial to a client's mental health as well as physical health, and that we should attempt to educate MDs and mental health practitioners to that fact.
Ball's in your court now. You can prove the fairness you claim, and disprove my testable hypothesis at the same time. Or not. Up to you.
I don't need to prove anything to you. Neither does Boris. I think the majority of readers understood precisely what Boris was attempting to say in his article, and had no problem with it. I think the majority of readers understand and tacitly agree that, by whatever mechanism and however you wish to label it, muscles can and do sometimes react faster than the mind can order the movement.
I said proprioceptors and I meant proprioceptors-- the body's sense of location of its joints in relationship to surroundings. practice a mvmt often enough, you become skilled and efficient at that mvmt; at some point, the brain no longer has to exert conscious control..that's the programming you refer to. But that doesn't fully explain the skills of a professional athlete. Being able to hit a 102 mph fastball with a very precise swing. A boxer being able to register the precise angle and speed of an incoming punch, and avoid it.
We could have an even longer, useless discussion if we delve into fascia.
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Permalink Reply by Daniel Cohen on
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Sometimes it is necessary to draw out long hidden trauma in order to allow the healing process to continue. This is not telling a client what to feel but enabling them. We also have an obligation to the client to prepare them for what may happen to them. Sometimes it is cold symptoms, another feels like they were hit by a truck, tears may suddenly well up seemingly from nowhere, unable to wake up for over 24 hours, there are many effects and none obvious but they should know things can happen.
What do our researchers think of this
Healing Ancient Wounds: The Renegade's Wisdom
By John F. Barnes, PT
One of the things massage therapists teach others is that anything is possible. Of course their are limits but we look beyond and sometimes we get there.
A famous scientist once said, ""Imagination is more important than knowledge."
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It's very hard to make a universal rule for all cases, If I'm going to an art gallery, then imagination would be more interesting. If I need brain surgery, then, no question, knowledge.
Since this has been a discussion of teaching, that's why I've emphasized evaluation and validation of knowledge in this context.
Daniel Cohen said:Sometimes it is necessary to draw out long hidden trauma in order to allow the healing process to continue. This is not telling a client what to feel but enabling them. We also have an obligation to the client to prepare them for what may happen to them. Sometimes it is cold symptoms, another feels like they were hit by a truck, tears may suddenly well up seemingly from nowhere, unable to wake up for over 24 hours, there are many effects and none obvious but they should know things can happen.
What do our researchers think of this
Healing Ancient Wounds: The Renegade's Wisdom
By John F. Barnes, PT
One of the things massage therapists teach others is that anything is possible. Of course their are limits but we look beyond and sometimes we get there.
A famous scientist once said, ""Imagination is more important than knowledge."
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Cute. But not even remotely an answer to my question. Did you enter the search term into google for yourself? 375,000 results, none of which define the word anatomist, other than, as I said, as "one who studies anatomy." Under that definition, we are all anatomists.
Alright, admittedly a smarmey comment, but then, your response to an honest question was also rather catty. Never mind, though, I don't need to know. I accept wholeheartedly that your knowledge of human anatomy is superior to mine.
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"Oh, please, Raven, do expend another thousand words teaching us things we don't have a need to know."
I'm content to leave our fair and balanced conversation right there.cheers,Raven
Gary W Addis said:Cute. But not even remotely an answer to my question. Did you enter the search term into google for yourself? 375,000 results, none of which define the word anatomist, other than, as I said, as "one who studies anatomy." Under that definition, we are all anatomists.
Alright, admittedly a smarmey comment, but then, your response to an honest question was also rather catty. Never mind, though, I don't need to know. I accept wholeheartedly that your knowledge of human anatomy is superior to mine.
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How am I or Boris being more rude than Raven has been? I respond to sarcasm with sarcasm.
So, Raven, please for all our edification, educate us about Brodmann labeling. While you're at it, please explain why recent research that suggests that instantaneous electrical activity occurs in myofascial layer independent of brain command is wrong. I don't pretend to understand the mechanism, but there's an article on it here: http://www.cmjournal.org/content/6/1/13
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I wouldn't try to prove my knowledge of anatomy is better than someone else's, but I am confident of what I do when I "read" the body through my touch.
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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on
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Mind and Body are ONE.
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Mind-Body-Spirit-Environment
Gordon J. Wallis said:
Mind and Body are ONE.
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Permalink Reply by Laura Allen on
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Boris said:
It's reasonable to assume that the memory of the emotional experience is stored somewhere in the brain - the system that is specialized in memory handling and remained inaccessible, as many other memories a human being experiencing during the life. But the shoulder cells hold the bookmark or a memory address of where the actual memories of the incident were stored in the brain. Thus by activating the shoulder cell you triggered the process of loading the content of that remote memory in the active memory, causing the aforementioned reaction.
This reminded me of something that happened very early in my massage career. I used to have a client who is a clinical psychologist and has been practicing over 40 years. One week she came for her massage, and there was a heinous-looking bruise on her arm. I asked her what had happened, and she said "Laura, I don't want you to get upset. That happened during our massage last week." I almost croaked at the thought that I had bruised a client like that, it was black and blue.
She told me that while I was working on her arm, she had experienced a memory of her childhood and her alcoholic and abusive father, who would always grab her by that arm and say "You are really in trouble now" just prior to whatever punishment he was doling out. She said she felt that bruise was a badge of honor for her finally being able to forgive him after years of harboring resentment about it. Scientific, not at all. But an example of the kind of things that happen all the time.
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