Health practitioners, and those concerned with the healing arts, and parents may like to know about a technique that has been developed, and used with considerable success for the last forty five years. De-Identification Processing is a method of detecting, and releasing identifications with role models, assumed at a time of great stress, who are appraised as being more successful, powerful, loving, and strong at the time of the identification.

Identification:

I define in this instance, as the adoption of another personality, including attitudes, preferences, philosophical, and even political belief structures. Symptoms of physical and emotional disturbances, and chronic illness will be manifested that mimic those of the person thus identified with. This manifestation is similar to that of an actor who immerses himself into the entire persona of another individual, but in this instance the merging with another identity is unconscious.

These identification are made "whole cloth."

These identifications, made at a time of great stress or trauma, often at an early age, are not easily available to the conscious mind, unless this method of ventilating the unconscious is used. These identifications are made "whole cloth" as it were with the adoption of not only the good, positive qualities that were the motivation for the identification in the first place, but also any pathology, illness, negative attitudes, and non-nurturing patterns of behaviour. Typically, the client who keeps on returning with an intractable low back or other pain, or addictive behaviour, may well have identified with someone who had a spinal injury, chronic muscle tension or the addictive behaviour in question. While the pain or symptoms are felt to be real, it is nevertheless a "phantom" symptom, and will resist treatment or keep returning.

A phantom symptom:

A phantom symptom is when where pain or disturbance is felt but there is no physical causation present. A typical example is that of an individual who still feels the presence, and sensations of an amputated limb.

With the aid of De-Identification Processing, once the person that they have identified with has been located, and the reason for identifying has been established, the client can choose as to whether or not to relinquish the identification. If the identification has been made at an early age, it is sometimes felt to be threatening to "lose" a way of being that has been present for most of that person's life. In those instances other processes are needed in order for the person to arrive at their present biological age.

Regaining years of your life

If the client is willing to relinquish this identification, symptoms of pain or negative emotions, (depression, acute anxiety, etc.,) and pathological behaviour are immediately released as it initially "belonged" to the person they identified with. They will also look, feel, and act much younger as most identifications are with an older person. The procedure is deceptively simple but powerful in its application and results.

  Case History

De-Identification Processing came about as a result of some observations made while carrying out various forms of body work, and psychological counselling. Numerous times while working on a client, it became obvious that clients did not have a true sense of their own body tone, or psychological states. When palpating muscle knots, and chronically tense areas, clients, when queried as to how these areas felt would reply along the lines of, "Oh, that feels fine, and relaxed!" Sometimes the reverse phenomenon would be present, areas displaying good tone and resilience would elicit symptoms of extreme pain and subjective tension. The same unawareness or confusion would also be present in the emotional and psychological areas as well.

A case study of a client

A client who presented an unusual pattern of physical and emotional patterns produced an answer. She was 33 years of age. She had never experienced menses or sexual intercourse. Felt she was homosexual but was drawn to very young girls. To her such behaviour was morally unacceptable. While applying a technique called Rolfing which involved very deep muscular reorganisation, the client felt extreme terror, pain, and tension while work was being attempted on the Psoas muscle group in the groin area. What was most startling was the contrast between the upper and lower part of the body. Above the waist the hair was light in colour, and downy like the fuzz on a peach. The tissues were resilient, had good tone, and could be palpated without discomfort. Below the waist the tissues were oedematous, and when pressed left pits which had a slow recovery time. The pelvis was narrow, but appeared female because of superfluous tissue on the sides. Pain on pressure was acute, and extreme tension was noticed when deep probing was attempted. Fluid retention was present, but the most startling difference was the body hair which was profuse, black, and bristly. It was if a line had been drawn across the navel.

Series of Key Questions

The client when asked felt very comfortable with the upper part of her body, but hated the lower part, and felt it was alien to her. When these words were heard a series of questions came to the mind of the author. These questions are described in the section headed, procedure. From this client's responses to those questions it became obvious that she had been sexually abused at an early age without any conscious recall of the incidents.

As the questions were asked, the patient began to describe a shadowy figure that became clearer as time went on. As the patient was asked to obtain a clearer image she began to describe a series of incidents in which she was being genitally stimulated. The first incident was when she was having her first pelvic examination at the age of 11 by her family doctor who was a woman. As she put it, " I was not only horrified, and shocked, but extremely angry at the betrayal of trust. Because she was a woman doctor, and one who had attended my family for years she did not have any chaperone present. I was also quite fond of her but now I was so terrified that I felt myself sliding out of my body, and becoming her in order to placate her, and to get her to stop." No judgement was made at this time as to whether this identification was responsible for her sexual predilection for young women. Further elucidation was not asked for as by this time the patient was evidencing symptoms of shock.

While such repressed memories are subject of much controversy; at that time in1959, such recall of memories were unknown to the author. It was decided to suspend disbelief as the primary concern was for a relief of symptoms rather than proving the existence of repressed memories of sexual abuse or not. As the work, (mainly on the abdominal area,) accompanied by these questions continued, a whole series of traumatic incidents became ventilated. As each incident came into consciousness, a lessening of muscular tension ensued with each emotional discharge until the client appeared to relinquish the identifications.

Recovering an Original Identity

Letting go an identification results in a recovery of their original identity that they possessed before such incidents happened. It would be instructive to perform this technique while the subject is being monitored by EEG, and other forms of diagnostic neurological imaging equipment. Over the next few weeks, a major biological, and psychological reorganisation seemed to take place. Hormone imbalances and sexual orientation underwent a major change towards normalisation. Her menses started, and she reported feeling more female with an increasing sexual desire towards men.

Over the next few months she underwent some very profound physical, and psychological changes. At first she had difficulty in walking. As she put it, "my usual circuits are blown, and I need to start afresh." The hair on the lower part of her body started to slough off, which was unprecedented in her, or the author's experience. It was also startling for the many people who came into contact with her at her work as she was a health professional at an eminent London teaching hospital. The author's hopes that this would lead to a controlled trial of this discovery was not fulfilled. Perhaps not surprisingly the whole episode was dismissed as a fluke biological normalisation.

Procedure

Preferably, have your client lying on their back, on a comfortable couch or bed with their eyes closed. First explain what you are going to do. Then slide your hand under their back just above their shoulder blade until your fingers feel a tense muscle knot, or some hard armouring.

Then ask them the following series of questions allowing sufficient pauses for them to answer. It is very important not to give any sense of rush or hurry. Indeed, reassurance is often necessary for them to take their time to allow the responses and images to appear.

"Is this area hard or soft, tense or relaxed?"

After they have responded, ask:

"What kind of person would own this part of the body if it wasn't yours?"

"Allow an image to come into your mind of the kind of person who would own this part of the body if it didn't belong to you?"

"Are they tall, short, or medium height, small or big build?"

"Are they male or female?"

"How old were you when you first saw that image? Allow the age that you were to come into your consciousness."

If the image is faint or they can only see a segment of the person's body, the suggestion, "Allow the image to become clearer in your mind," will often help.

Next ask, "How old is that person in the image that you are looking at?"

And in order to discover the reason for the identification being formed in the first place,

"What was it about that person that attracted you, what quality did they have which you may have felt deficient in at that time?"

The final question, and the most important is,

What do you feel you want to do with that image?"

If the response is one of letting go, and they do let this false personality be released from them, you will feel the muscle relax or body armour soften, and any pain significantly lessen. At the same time, you may well notice a lightening of the atmosphere in the room. Sometimes when scanning these sub personalities, it feels very heavy and matured, especially if the identification is with a much older person.

If your client wants to keep the image, don't try to persuade them to let it go. The mere fact of identifying the person that they are being, helps to start the separation process, and the release of symptoms. (If the identification has been made when the subject was very young, there is a subjective sense of immaturity. It is often felt as if the primal self has not progressed, and only the life style of the identification has been experienced. A different approach to strengthen the core self is then needed. In some cases a return of the fear of the threat to survival which precipitated the identification in the first place is experienced, and letting go will be resisted.)

Once you have scanned the back area, you can move to any part of the body where your client is experiencing tension or has symptoms. Addictive patterns, negative behaviour, physical or mental symptoms, and even the thinking processes can be scanned in this way. Just ask the question, "What kind of person would have this pattern, behaviour, thought processes etceteras, if it wasn't you?" If it is not a body part or symptom that you are working on, just maintain body contact with your hand on their shoulder. Many of my clients have gone into blissful, samahdi like states of altered consciousness when their thinking processes were scanned, and they released false persona, and became the creative source.

Theoretical Framework

Why do we identify with others? It is probably an aspect of the bonding process, that complex interaction between parent and infant that continues throughout our lives. This unconscious mimicking process enables us to learn survival skills, and bonds care givers to us so that they will protect us, and supply our needs. We also know from studies that animals will also bond with inanimate and inappropriate objects and substitute parents. The biologist, Konrad Lorenz, observed that when a clutch of goslings hatched without their mother present, they became attached to a pair of his rubber boots that happened to be beside the nest. Whenever Lorenz put his boots on, the goslings followed the boots faithfully. Even when the real mother was reintroduced to the goslings some days later, they ignored her and continued to treat the boots as their "mother." Lorenz called this imprinting. Bonding and imprinting appear the same, and after thirty years of observing patterns of bonded and addicted behavior, I believe that bonding and addiction are also identical.

So, what goes wrong?

Why do our children acquire patterns of behaviour that we regard as addictive and harmful? It is the quality and nature of the experiences and/or the people that our children are exposed to that determines whether the mimicked behaviour is positive bonding or negative addiction. Most animals in their natural habitat instinctively shield their young at birth, and then for some time, protecting them from harm and inappropriate imprinting. However, humans consistently expose their young to potentially harmful influences. Quite unwittingly, because of our birthing and rearing practices, we may be producing a rogue species. One such major and potentially harmful influence that babies are exposed to is chemical anaesthesia during childbirth. Experiencing drugs at birth may program infants for the need for drugs later on in life.

( There has been research carried out in Scandinavia which has validated my earlier research. See the end of this article.)

Births in the Hospitals

When mothers started going into the hospital during the 1940's, routinely having anaesthesia, this may have spawned the 1960's generation of drug addicts. In Britain, where I practised, in 1960 there were only 64 registered heroin addicts. (The taking of heroin is quite legal in Britain as long as it supplied by a physician.) By 1965 there had been a comparative explosion of narcotic addiction in young people. Before 1940, most mothers in Britain gave birth at home attended by a midwife. According to a survey that I conducted, most midwives did not like using the gas and air anaesthesia then available. An anaesthetised mother was less able to cooperage and the doctor on call would have to intervene. Many midwives would offer the birthing mother alcohol. Perhaps this might explain why before 1960, alcohol was the drug of choice. It is interesting to speculate, that our tendency as a culture to take pills and potions for every ache and pain, drugs and alcohol to mask pain and strong feelings, may have its roots in being born to mothers who were anaesthetised against painful feelings. This after all is an infant's first learning experience.

Babies, from the 40's on, were commonly sedated through their mother's anaesthesia and slapped into wakefulness after delivery. Their first tactile contact was with rubber or plastic gloves. Then they were bathed, weighed, medicated, given sugar water, and depending on the hospital, isolated for varying periods of time. During that time they may have been forming primary bonds with the nursing staff and their procedures (which could be inappropriate) thus laying the foundation for a number of addictive behaviours ranging from habitual drug use to the inability to form deep one-to-one intimate relationships. If a child is drugged at birth, separated, kept in a crib, touched only when necessary, pushed in strollers and physically punished or left to cry for long periods, the child is likely to become addicted to those patterns, constantly seeking relief from experiencing strong feelings, in the many distractions and aids to diversion that modern day society provides.

On the other hand, if a child is closely held from birth, touched, caressed, wanted and loved, the child learns that she is a valuable, warm and loveable person. She will have high self-esteem and a strong spiritual connection with her source of creativity. She becomes bonded to these beliefs.

An example of a role identification that was acquired at birth and carried throughout the majority of her life is the story of an overweight friend of mine. She complained of compulsively giving her children sugary juices, knowing that this was a bad practice. She was also aware that she helped others when she often didn't want to. I asked her, "What kind of a person would have that pattern if it wasn't you?" She went on to describe a vivid memory of lying in a crib just after birth, lustily crying her heart out, when a large jolly, bustling nurse came in and picked her up. Crooning to her, "This will make you feel better," the nurse pushed a bottle of sugar water into my friend's mouth. With that memory, she realised that in the stress of being separated from her mother, she identified with a source of warm sweet nurturing, and unwittingly had become bonded to the nurse's pattern of using sweets and food to placate distress, which included not only her children's but her own.

As the above story indicates, we need to take great care that the experiences that we expose our infants to are positive bonding ones rather than negative addicting ones. Herein lays our strength and hope in resolving many of the seemingly intractable problems facing us, including habitual drug use. We have the solution in our hands and the power to implement them, but public awareness needs to be aroused.

© Rayner Garner 1998

Birth drugs may reduce mother and baby bonding

By Robert Uhlig, Technology Correspondent

(Filed: 29/03/2001)

WOMEN who use drugs for pain relief during labour jeopardise their chances of bonding with their baby, scientists report today.

Swedish researchers have found that painkillers prevent newborns from breastfeeding normally, which in turn can affect the levels of a maternal hormone that helps the mother and baby to bond shortly after birth. Anna-Berit Ransjo-Arvidson, a research midwife at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, videotaped 28 new born babies who were dried immediately after birth and placed against their mother's breasts.

Ten mothers had no pain relief. The remaining 18 had taken some form of painkiller such as bupivacaine, mepivacaine or pethidine, given either as epidurals or injections. Babies whose mothers had not taken painkillers behaved entirely normally, New Scientist reports today, and were more likely to breastfeed instinctively. The babies moved towards the mother's breast, massaged it with their hands, reached for the nipple and started sucking about an hour after birth.

But most of the other babies, whose mothers had taken painkillers, did not massage the breast at all, or only massaged it occasionally. Almost half of these babies did not breastfeed within two and a half hours after birth. Mrs Ransjo-Arvidson said the painkillers might be numbing the infants. Pethidine and local anaesthetics readily pass across the placenta, and the other painkillers may do the same, she said.

Among mothers who took no painkillers, the researchers found levels of the hormone oxytocin, which controls lactation and contraction of the uterus, increased whenever the baby massaged or sucked their mother's breast. In animals, researchers have shown that oxytocin facilitates bonding between the mother and baby.

Since a baby exposed to analgesia interacts less with the mother, painkillers may damp down the release of maternal oxytocin and stop mother and baby bonding readily, Mrs Ransjo-Arvidson said. Her team of researchers has already started studying this connection.

3 September 1998: [Connected] Bottle-fed babies miss 'vital' fat