A Practical Guide to Bonding Analysis. Bonding-Related Support in Pregnancy Presented by "APPA" (Academy-To-Promote-Prenatal-Attachment)

THE ACADEMY TO PROMOTE PRENATAL ATTACHMENT PRESENTS:

BONDING ANALYSIS

BONDING-RELATED SUPPORT IN PREGNANCY

Today I will present to you a still relatively new and not yet worldwide known scientific method that enables the pregnant woman to experience a different kind of pregnancy and birth process with the help of a method that was developed by two Hungarian psychoanalysts, Dr. György Hidas and Dr. Jeno Raffai. They called their method BONDING ANALYSIS. They started their work and research in the 1980s incorporating the findings of prenatal psychology and other scientific disciplines into their work.

I myself was very lucky to have been trained in BA by Dr. Raffai before he passed away in 2015.

I am a Certified Prenatal Bonding Analyst and I have not only been accompanying pregnant women with this amazing method but have also been teaching it for some years now.

I will introduce to you the Bonding Analysis method as well as to a modified version that I have worked out and practiced successfully so far. My approach differs from the „classical“ BA as practised and taught by psychotherapists and psychoanalysts. I call my method:

BONDING-RELATED SUPPORT IN PREGNANCY - TO PROMOTE PRENATAL MOTHER-BABY BONDING.

I offer my courses mainly to all professionals dealing with pregnancy and birth such as midwives, doulas, gynecologists, naturopaths, body therapists, social pedagogues, family therapists, to name but a few.

To reach more people worldwide I founded the ACADEMY-TO-PROMOTE- PRENATAL-ATTACHMENT (APPA) - the French version carries the title „ACCOMPAGNEMENT PRENATAL PSYCHO-AFFECTIF“ (APPA).

My major aim is to teach BA so that people having been taught this method would become multiplicators and help women all over the world supporting them with BA so that they live a different pregnancy and birth with the help of a deep and sound bonding process.

So, as I said in the beginning, the classical BA was developed in the 1980s by Hidas and Raffai who have always emphasized that BA is not only a method for preventing the transfer of trauma but also a tool for creating a strong bonding in Utero. I will explain later what kind of trauma might be transferred from mother to baby as well as other factors hampering a healthy psychological development of the prenatal baby, such as influence of maternal stress, birth trauma, twin loss, implications of the reproduction medicine, epigenetic impacts.

Professor Thomas Verny, the worldwide most renowned prenatal psychologist is, like other scientists in this field, totally convinced that unborn babies are able to think, feel, learn and interact from the very beginning, that is from conception on! Please open your mind to the idea that the unborn child also stores every memory not only in the developing brain but in every single cell of its whole body as Verny so brilliantly explains in his latest book „The Embodied Mind“. Understanding the Mysteries of Cellular Memory, Consciousness, and Our Bodies“.

Fetal life and experiences in the womb have been the subject of intensive research since the 1970s, together with a variety of ways to verify the truth of the research results. I will further explain this later.

Now let me first summarize the topics I am going to present:

Chapter 1: I will briefly talk about the origin and development of BA.

Chapter 2: Then explain why prenatal bonding is of the utmost importance.

Chapter 3: After that I will describe the BA application processes.

Chapter 4: Followed by an explanation of how to deal with the pregnant woman's biography, what we call anamnesis and which is the first pillar of BA.

Chapter 5: Then I will describe how the so-called „inner dialogue“ (second pillar of BA) between mother and baby works (communication channels).

Chapter 6: And I will provide some statistical data that illustrate the advantages of BA for mother and baby.

Chapter 7: I will go on by briefly summarizing Bowlby's attachment concept and how it can be applied to the Bonding Analysis.

Chapter 8: The next topic will then be bonding problems pregnant women might have, their origins & ways of resolving them. In that context I will present my „Self-Parenting“ method to you.

Chapter 9: Then we will see to what extent does the Bonding Analysis serve as a tool to build up resilience and to have an effect of prevention.

Chapter 10: We need to look at the effects of maternal stress on the baby and in which way the BA can be very helpful

Chapter 11: This will be followed by giving examples how the baby may experience birth

Chapter 12: Another hot topic is twin loss in Utero

Chapter 13: Not to forget the effects of ART technology in the context of the reproductive medicine.

Chapter 14: Then let me get to the 3 pillar of BA : the very special birth preparation

Chapter 15: In a final chapter I will address a new scientific field that is in the process of revolutionizing almost all scientific disciplines and will do so even more in the future: Epigenetics and its significance for pregnancy.

Practically, every week, every month the newest research reports are being published concerning the most extraordinary and astonishing findings in the field of epigenetics including those in prenatal psychology. This topic alone could fill many hours. I have tried to summarize just some important points.

In general, I will summarize some topics , others I will present more extensively.

Now let me get to the first topic:

Chapter 1: Origin and development of BONDING ANALYSIS

The origins of BA go back to Dr Hidas and Dr Raffai's therapeutic work with psychotic adolescents in Hungary in the 1980s. They discovered that their mental disorders must have developed throughout the period they had spent in their mothers' wombs. And I quote Raffai : "What they completely lacked was the conscious sensation of their own physical boundaries, which made it impossible for them to perceive themselves as autonomous, independent beings and to develop a self of their own."

Raffai found unequivocal evidence that the lack of self-awareness in these young psychotic patients was tightly linked to their mothers' bonding inability.

Like others before or with him, for example Lloyd DeMause, Ludwig Janus, Thomas Verny, Otto Rank, David Chamberlain, Michel Odent, to name but a few, Raffai completely understood that the emotional and mental state of pregnant women all through the pregnancy and especially their bonding capacity and quality have an enormous impact on the unborn baby and its physical and psychological health.

For Raffai, the emotional and mental state of the pregnant woman during pregnancy, with a particular focus on her bonding capacity and quality and their impact on the unborn baby, is of paramount importance. Therefore, Raffai had been looking for a preventive method to first analyze the woman's bonding quality and capacity in order to then improve and strengthen them, i.e. to look for the origins of existing bonding problems, so that the pregnant woman can develop a healthy, stable, protective and supportive bonding relationship with her unborn baby in the course of the 9-month long life in the womb.

Together with Hidas, Raffai accompanied pregnant women in Hungary with the BA from the mid-1980s on and after contacting Dr. Ludwig Janus, the German counterpart of Thomas Verny, both taught BA in training courses in Germany from 2004 on. Together they trained bonding analysts in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium until Raffai's death in 2015. Taking all countries together (Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, the USA) one can say that so far about 10,000 women have been accompanied with the BA, which has also been researched at various universities for some time now.

The participants in the BA training courses come from a wide variety of professional backgrounds: gynecologists, general practitioners, body therapists, family therapists, doulas, psychologists, psychotherapists, alternative practitioners and of course, in the forefront, midwives, who are closest to the pregnant women - along with their families. Over the years, Raffai has constantly incorporated the results of scientific findings and prenatal psychology into his method.

In this context, one of the most significant discoveries is the so-called cell memory by molecular biologist Bruce Lipton, which prenatal psychologists call pre-linguistic consciousness. All the experiences the baby has in the womb are stored in all its cells, first and foremost, of course, in the brain.

The mother transfers her world of experiences to her baby via chemical and biological processes. All negative and positive feelings a pregnant woman can have are transferred to the baby, i.e. stress, fears, sadness, depression, but also and this is important, feelings of joy, harmony and strength.

The Bonding Analysis offers a new approach to pregnancy and birth. According to Raffai, the major goals of BA are the following:

1.      Promoting a deep prenatal mother-baby bond

2.      Strengthening pregnant women on many levels

3.      Supporting the maternal maturation process.

4.      Satisfying the unborn Baby's primary need to be accepted and loved, to be given security and protection and above all to be securely attached .

Raffai coined the expression: "The pregnant woman will change from still being her mother's child to becoming her child's mother).

Interestingly, the English language has 2 words for the „attachment bond“: the term bonding refers to the mother's relationship with her baby and the term „attachment“ to the baby's relationship with its mother. Both relationships mark the baby's physical and psychological health and overall development.

A mother's loving and caring bonding capacity and quality essentially forms the baby's attachment quality and enhances its attachment capacity.

A baby that has experienced a secure attachment before birth is more capable of bonding with other people because it can build on its prenatal experiences. The knowledge about the importance of prenatal life and experiences should be spread around the world in order to understand the deeper sense of what the baby is living through in Utero Above all, positive bonding experiences create the basis for stable, psychological and physical health in adulthood.

CHAPTER 2: Significance of PRENATAL bonding/attachment

Why are PRENATAL bonding and attachment of such an extraordinary importance especially for the emotional development of the baby and even more so for the development of its brain?

One of the leading German neurobiologists and brain researchers, Prof. Dr. Gerald Hüther, explains the importance of prenatal experiences as follows: "During its first nine months, a child presumably learns far more than in the course of its entire later life, and what it has already learned before birth in terms of bonding experiences is obviously quite decisive for its later life."

If a baby experiences attachment security before birth, it is already able to develop self-confidence very early on which is followed by the perception of self-esteem. Through the emotional and mental interactions with the mother, through the images and feelings she sends to her baby - unconsciously - but consciously in the context of BA - the baby experiences that it is being perceived as an independent human being.

The unborn baby is aware of everything that preoccupies, distresses, torments its mother, i.e. strong emotions such as love and hate, finer emotional conditions such as doubt, weakness and indecision. Everything the baby feels and perceives shapes its attitude towards life, towards itself and towards its parents. Whether it will later be predominantly happy, sad, belligerent, cowardly, self-confident or tormented by fear largely depends on what messages it received about itself in the womb.

According to the findings of modern developmental psychology, but especially prenatal psychology, a child's personality development is shaped from conception on and throughout the 9 months in the womb. (fetal imprinting or programming are relatively new technical terms)

The mother constantly shapes the baby's psychic and emotional development and the best tool to achieve that is to build up a deep, intensive, positive, emotional bond by providing the unborn baby with a strong feeling of security and protection, by conveying reliability and by creating trust.

For children, whether before or after birth, attachment is an absolute primary need and if this need is met prenatally, a more effective basis is created for a mentally and physically stable health in adulthood, enabling adults to have stable, harmonious and peaceful relationships.

What are the positive effects of prenatal bonding?

The babies whose mothers have been accompanied with BA (we call them „BA babies“) actually develop differently. They are better able to self-regulate their affects and emotions. They react more appropriately to stressful situations and keep their negative feelings under control. Developing the ability to self-regulate affects needs repetitive secure, sustainable bonding and attachment experiences.

According to Raffai, the BA babies acquire what he called „psycho-social competence“, which means these babies are more empathetic towards their fellow beings! They develop self-confidence very early so that they feel quite comfortable to explore the world around them. If, for example, siblings go to the same kindergarden or school and one child's mother had been accompanied by BA during her pregnancy and the brother or sister has not, kindergarden or nursery school teachers confirm that they state striking differences in the sibling's learning and social behavior!

Prof. Verny describes the effect of prenatal bonding so brilliantly: "A secure person has a deep-rooted self-confidence. They know that everything will work out. They know this with the wonderful certainty of someone who has been told since the first spark of consciousness, and who has been told again and again, that they are wanted and loved. From this feeling, specific character traits naturally follow, such as optimism, confidence, openness to others and extroversion" (Extract from the book: "The secret life of the child before birth", page 29/30).

So, how can prenatal bonding be achieved within the context of BA?

First and foremost, BA is about finding out what the pregnant woman's bonding capacity and quality are like so that the bonding analyst can develop a strategy about how to strengthen and improve both. There is a variety of factors that may be at the root of bonding problems keeping the pregnant woman from making good bonding possible.

On the basis of my work with pregnant women I can ascertain that almost all bonding problems, bonding disorders or blockages originate from the way these women were treated by their parents or other caregivers prenatally, during early childhood and adolescence. They show symptoms of emotional deficits, more or less severe. Mind you, this is not about parents bashing, not at all. All parents did as best as they could, only passing on what they had received. I will get back to that topic later.

So, the bonding analyst's main task is to detect the existing deficits, search for their causes and suggest possible solutions. The way can then be paved for the pregnant woman to establish a solid mental and emotional contact with her baby.

The main tool used in BA is what we call the pregnant woman's anamnesis or her biography which is the first BA pillar. I will explain the exact content and procedures in chapter 4.

If the pregnant woman's ability to bond is impaired, it will be difficult for her to establish contact with her baby. An impersonal, negligent attitude towards the baby has considerable and lifelong consequences for the baby! Rejection that has led to abortion attempts, which the embryo had survived, are among the most traumatic experiences that can be inflicted on an unborn baby. As adults, these babies suffer throughout their lives from a total lack of attachment, mortal fears of abandonment, feelings of panic, agony of annihilation.

Prenatal bonding and brain research

The development of brain and psyche are closely connected. Genetic conditions and environmental experiences, i.e. epigenetic imprinting, form the prerequisites. As early as 3 1/2 weeks after conception, the first basic elements of the brain stem develop, the basis for all survival functions. The spinal cord, the brain stem and parts of the limbic system, the center for the perception of feelings, function very early. The cortex, where consciousness, reason and the ability to speak are situated, develops more slowly and only much later during pregnancy.

A human brain consists of about 100 billion nerve cells. From the 8th week of pregnancy, about 250,000 nerve cells develop per minute until there are about 200 billion nerve cells. This number is divided in half again until birth, so that a baby is born with about 100 billion nerve cells. These cells are connected to each other by synapses which in turn constitute the information connections in the neuronal network and the so-called neurotransmitters are messenger substances responsible for the flow of information.

The German brain researcher Prof. Dr. Gerhard Roth calls these neurotransmitters the "language of the soul/psyche", they transfer information in the synapses within milliseconds. Dr. Nicole Strüber, another German brain researcher, calls them "neurochemical communicators" because they influence the way we perceive things.

The limbic system

Neurobiologists, such as Roth and Strüber, describe the limbic system as the site of all conscious and unconscious emotions. This system is a very complex network divided into three levels, the lower, middle and upper levels. While the upper limbic level involves conscious feelings and actions, upbringing and socialization, the middle limbic level is shaped by early childhood, bonding experiences, and conditioned learning.

Prenatally, the lower limbic level is the most interesting. This level, together with the pituitary gland, controls life-sustaining, vegetative bodily functions. Innate behaviors such as flight and aggression, regulation of stress and emotional states such as joy, anger and sadness are anchored here. These functions are of genetic origin, to which are added all prenatal experiences gained during pregnancy.

The emotional experiences that a mother lives through during pregnancy trigger the release of neuromodulators, neuropeptides and neurohormones. They reach the fetal brain via the bloodstream and influence brain development. The experience of our own birth, which lies deep within all of us, is also rooted there.

The diverse stimuli that pass from mother to child provide a constant stream of learning experiences that the child deals with by linking the excitation patterns generated in the brain with patterns that have already been created and anchor them as new experiences. The nerve cells in the brain divide, multiply, learn from each other, and form ever more complex networks with more and more connections. Structural and functional development go hand in hand.

Bonding and attachment experiences made within the intra-uterine living environment are deeply imprinted in every cell of our body and not only in the brain as was assumed for a long time. Bonding experiences, good or bad, determine how we perceive ourselves and others. Positive experiences are a vital prerequisite for the child to live a healthy life. The parents' bonding capacity for their part depends of course on the experiences they have had in their own prenatal life and development and during their childhood.

Prof. Hüther states that the child's brain has the capacity to learn all through pregnancy. Thomas Verny speaks of the womb as the first classroom! For Prof. Hüther, the most important task of the brain is to create and form relationships of which bonding and attachment are the most prominent elements especially with regard to the unborn child.

To summarize: Early bonding that is to say prenatal bonding creates a more solid and secure basis for the mental and emotional health of the unborn baby and the development of its brain!

At the end of my presentation I will describe to you a very successful bonding analysis which clearly illustrates what BA can achieve: A pregnancy that started with an attitude of total rejection was successfully turned during the BA consultations into a secured loving relationship at the very end.

Chapter 3: BA application procedures

So, how is the Bonding Analysis structured?

The best time to start a Bonding Analysis is between the 12th and 17th week of pregnancy. However, it can also start a little later.

In an initial interview, the pregnant woman is asked why she wants to be accompanied with the BA, what her expectations are and whether she has already sought information about that method before contacting the Bonding Analyst. She is given a detailed explanation of what the BA entails and how it works.

Secondly, the pregnant woman is asked to fill in a questionnaire that may sometimes take up a couple of hours depending on the "luggage" the pregnant woman brings with her. The answers to the questions are the basis for the analysis and the assessment of her bonding capacity and quality. Raffai called his questionnaire „anamnesis“ which is in fact a shortened version of her biography.

The Bonding Analyst and the pregnant woman usually meet once a week, if possible same day, same time, the reason being – as Raffai explained it - that the baby gets used to this regularity which becomes a fixed ritual. That way, the mother conveys to her baby the feeling that she is reliable. The consultation sessions are called „baby session“ . They may take between 45 and 60 minutes.

The Bonding Analyst works with the anamnesis by extracting all vital information pertaining to the nature of her relationship with her partner, her parents, her parents-in-law and her maternal and paternal grand-parents.

All baby sessions are structured in the following way: During the first 20 minutes, the Analyst singles out certain answers to the questions contained in the questionnaire that might need further clarification.

Then the Bonding Analyst leads the pregnant woman into deep relaxation giving her specific instructions about how to get into contact with her baby. That might also take about 15 to 20 minutes and during the last 20 minutes the pregnant woman describes to the Analyst what she has experienced, seen on her inner screen and felt during the state of deep relaxation and whether and how contact has been established between her and her baby. All further sessions follow the same pattern.

In deep relaxation, the pregnant woman focuses her attention on her body. She concentrates on sensory impressions, feelings, thoughts and fantasies that may appear on her inner screen as symbolic images.

The pregnant woman tunes in to the baby and the inner images via what Raffai called an "INNER DIALOGUE" (second pillar of BA) between mother and baby. This interaction and connection works both ways. Raffai named this kind of communication "the umbilical cord of both souls" which by the way is the title of his book that was translated from Hungarian to German but not yet into English.

Once the connection with the baby is established, - which by the way might take a couple of baby sessions (around 6 to 8) the pregnant woman begins to send inner images to her baby, also feelings and real talks. She can receive the same from the baby. It is quite common that in the beginning it is difficult for the pregnant woman to distinguish her own thoughts and images from those coming from her baby That is quite normal. However, once the contact is established, it becomes more and more easy for the pregnant woman to differentiate between her own thoughts, feelings and images and those coming from her baby.

The connection between those two gets more and more intimate and deeper, so that already at a very early stage in the pregnancy the mother learns how her baby feels in the womb, how it is developing and what its needs are. Knowledge about the baby increases. Clarity and transparency in their relationship develop further.

In the course of the sessions, the baby can also be prepared, for example, for upcoming medical interventions such as ultrasound examinations or the usual check up with the gynecologist.

About 4 weeks before the calculated date of birth, the so-called „birth preparation sessions begin, altogether up to 6 or 8 sessions which must be completed 10 days before the calculated date of birth.

During these birth preparation sessions, mother and baby prepare together the upcoming physical separation and the birth process which they will manage together. Mother and baby say goodbye to each other in order to be reunited after birth.

To initiate and accompany this process of separation, of letting go, Raffai has worked out specific instructions that the mother imparts to her baby.

In the last session, the pregnant woman is discharged with a special homework to do. She is told to practice the birth rehearsal every day together with her baby right up to the moment when the real birth procedure starts.

About 4-6 weeks after the birth, mother and Analyst meet again to talk about the birth and how the baby has developed. After about 6 months another meeting is scheduled and again all information about the baby's development are written down in a questionnaire which is used for gaining statistical data.

The Bonding Analysis is successful when, firstly, the pregnant woman has gone through a maturity process and, as Raffai puts it, "has changed from being her mother's child into being her child's mother" meaning that all bonding problems, difficulties, disorders, and blockages have been solved.

And secondly, when the birth process has taken place, without complications.

Chapter 4: The questionnaire – the pregnant woman's biography

First, all relevant formal data are recorded, e.g. how many weeks pregnant is the woman? When is the birth due and, if known, when was the date of conception?

Then the pregnant woman explains why she wants to be accompanied with the Bonding Analysis. What are her expectations? Her answers can already be very revealing, is she really interested in prenatal bonding or is she rather focused on just having a smooth birth?

Next question concerns her baby, is it planned, accidental, unwanted? What were the first feelings when the pregnant woman found out that she was expecting a child? Does she already feel any kind of contact with her baby, e.g. energetically, intuitively, physically?

Then she is asked to describe her partner and their relationship. How long have they been together? Do they live together? Have they had any crises yet? If yes, how did they deal with them? What is the father's attitude towards the baby. What was his reaction when he was told that he will become a father?

Further questions concern possible problems with the current pregnancy. Does the pregnant woman have any negative or rejecting thoughts about her baby, at the beginning or during the pregnancy ?

A very important question concerns possible losses of emotionally significant people in her life or especially since the beginning of her pregnancy or short before she got pregnant? (through death, or separation).

She is then asked whether she has had any miscarriages or abortions in the past. If either is answered in the affirmative, she is then asked whether any kind of grieving has been done after the loss of a child in Utero or whether an abortion still occupies her thoughts or dreams?

Then she should very spontaneously describe her mother and father in a few sentences and depict the nature of their relationship in her childhood and now as a grown-up person. Did they have any severe problems, conflicts, misunderstandings ?

Does she know whether she was planned, accidental or unwanted herself and what was her own perception?

This is followed by the most vital question: What was her own pregnancy and birth like? Were there any particularities, problems, was it a pregnancy at risk? Did her mother suffer a loss during her pregnancy? How did the birth go? Was it premature, did it take place on the expected date or was it post mature? Was the birth induced, was there a long expulsion phase? What obstetric interventions were used, if any? Were analgesics administered, was a PDA used? Was a Caesarean section desired from the outset and carried out? Was an emergency section necessary? Was there any separation from the mother after birth? Had breastfeeding worked right away?

The same questions are being asked with regard to the course of her partner's pregnancy and birth.

The next questions pertain to the relationship with her parents-in-law as well as her partner's relationship with his parents.

More general questions follow, such as whether the pregnant woman is generally satisfied with her life, her partnership/marriage and her job situation?

Finally, questions are asked about her everyday life and living conditions. She is asked to describe a typical day in great detail from the time she gets up to the time she goes to bed, and how she spends the weekends.

The Bonding Analyst then thoroughly works on the answers given, searching for bonding problems and bonding related issues. The results of this analysis are then being discussed during the baby sessions.

Chapter 5: Communication channels and the role of the „INNER DIALOGUE“

In his work, Raffia talked about three different communication channels between mother and baby through which information flow back and forth.

First, the physiological/biological level: for example if the pregnant woman is upset about something, she produces stress hormones, which reach the baby through the placenta. If her heartbeat accelerates, the baby's heartbeat doubles only a fraction of a second later.

Secondly, the physical level: for example, when the pregnant woman caresses her belly that has a calming effect on the baby. If the baby is stressed, it may kick violently, etc.

The 3rd level is the empathic/intuitive/emotional-mental connection and it is the emotional-mental one where the contact between mother and baby takes place. This is exactly the level on which the BA is effective.

On this 3rd level, in turn, there are several communication paths through which the pregnant woman and her baby can enter into mental and emotional contact. Rafael describes these inner communication paths as "the umbilical cord of the two souls“ (soul in the sense of psyche). The communication between mother and baby takes place via the exchange of images and feelings, up to and including verbal dialogues.

How does that inner dialogue function?

Countless research on the behavior of brain waves in the state of deep relaxation have been carried out in the last decades. One result has shown that the so-called Alpha waves serve as a gateway to deep relaxation supporting the visualization of inner images. If we go deeper into relaxation, our brain switches to Theta waves. Our unconscious mental parts are located in this area. It is highly probable that the baby's Theta waves are tuned in the same way and that mother and baby meet on this level.

Raffia puts it this way: "In the common bonding space, they share their psychic contents with each other in a very natural way." This inner dialogue is also possible because mother and baby share the same body.

Another important means of communication is the release of maternal hormones reaching the baby via the placenta. The baby is constantly connected to the mother's emotional world. Her emotions can cause hormonal changes in the blood, change the oxygen supply or accelerate the heart rate, the latter two are then also noticeable in the baby and they can be measured.

There is a further channel and that is is actually the heart. A few days after conception, a tiny clump of pulsating cells forms in the embryo, the beginnings of the heart. It needs the mother's heartbeat as a stimulus for developing neural connections in the fetal brain, and with each heartbeat numerous nerve signals are sent to the brain. As a pulsating organ system, the heart is the bioenergetic and emotional center of the bonding process. It obtains information from hormones, heart rate and blood pressure, transforms these into nerve impulses and transmits them to the brain via the so-called vagus nerve and the nerve tracts of the spinal cord. Traumatizing events such as conception under violence, threats of abortion or failed abortions and loss of twins, are stored in the brain stem.

Moreover, the development of the individual sensory organs leads to the formation of further communication channels through which a multitude of impressions from the maternal organism are transferred onto the baby. Ultrasound examinations have shown for example that the prenatal baby even reacts physically to its mother's stressful thoughts alone.

I would like to give you a most striking example:

An eight-year-old boy had been suffering from vomiting all his life, no cause whatsoever could be found. He was therefore referred to a psychotherapist. Drawing pictures he repeatedly painted himself asleep at the bottom of a deep well. Through conversations with his mother and working with his pictures, it turned out that his mother had tried to abort him with a poisonous liquid when she was five months pregnant. But eventually she decided to have the child and even succeeded in establishing a loving relationship with him. BUT the traumatic experience was memorized in every cell of the boy's body and not only in his brain. After he had relived that experience in therapy, the vomiting stopped.

I resume: the inner dialogue is one of the 3 pillars of Bonding Analysis , the other two being the analysis of the pregnant woman's bonding capacity and quality and Raffia's birth preparation texts.