PERMANENCE OF NATALISM

Artwork is a consistent statement and revealing story of the artist's process. It leaves a tangible record. It cannot like words in memory be forgotten and lost with time. Looking back over old work, the artist can recall feelings which occurred when the art was originally created. When poignant art is revisited, the feelings can be further worked through and deeper insight can be achieved. Deborah recalls, "While I was speaking in the sharing group about the art experience it brought back a little of the pressure and pressing feeling and I explored it a little bit." Rogers (1993) echoes, "Since the images we create are lasting, the visual arts are particularly useful on the inner journey. Over and over again, we can look at our work, reflect on it, and let it speak to us" (p. 70). McNiff (1981) emphasises, "The great strength of the visual arts in therapy can be attributed to the physical permanence of art objects" (p. 154).

The dynamic of increased permanence of unconscious feelings and images in physically concrete and lasting artworks, as opposed to memories of dream experiences is important for the therapist to recognize and consider. Psychological issues flourish and are internally worked with in the world of dreams. Significant and powerful unconscious material comes to the surface, or up to a preconscious level, during the dream. In the dream content, images and feelings which the conscious mind is not ready to fully know, and cope with, will be presented and can be mulled through.

When the dreamer wakes, certain parts of the dream are remembered and other elements are conveniently lost. The details that are remembered are likely issues which are ready to be further processed and made sense of. The content of the dream which the person remembers later and brings to therapy is likely that which is appropriate and valid material to explore therapeutically.

Therapeutic artwork is similar to dreams in that symbolic material comes to the surface, or into the preconscious mind. Yet, unlike with dreaming, when the art making process is finished the significant symbolic images and material are still just as vividly present, in the work on the paper, as when the artwork was unfolding. After an art piece is finished, all the psychological material symbolized in the colours, forms and images retain their presence on the page. Internally, the psychological forces which have surfaced from the unconscious and the inner mind while they were engaged in the creative art process may have receded back to the preconscious or unconscious mind. Although the psychological forces may no longer be present, their shadows, marks and footprints are there in the feelings and content of the artwork.

These inherent features of permanence in artwork make for the ever- present availability of significant sensitive emotional content which may be revisted as the psyche of the artist is ready to deal with it. In contrast, psychological material found in the symbols and images of the dream which the person is not ready to face, discuss in depth or have analyzed may conveniently be forgotten in the receding memory of the dream. The prominent marks of an art piece are not so easily forgotten. This phenomenon of permanence of art as opposed to dreaming, requires an added degree of responsibility on the part of the therapist. Respect and sensitivity is required from the clinician in terms of discussing and processing the psychological material in a person's work of art. There can be material in the artwork that needs to be left alone until the artist brings it up.

Unlike the dream which, in part or in total, may be difficult to remember in a week or three months, the artwork can be returned to and reviewed over time as the person comes further along in the therapeutic process. With the passage of time, the artist can look at the artwork and may see something which had not been noticed before and finally understands an image because she is ready to.

When looking over a series of pieces, insights can occur that are not possible when exploring a single painting or session. Additionally, in reviewing a series of drawing from a lengthy period of time, both the client and the therapist can concretely recognize progress and development which has taken place over the duration of therapy. Having the opportunity to view a series of art pieces created over a period of time can allow for a broader sense of connectedness and continuity to the internal process. The person reviewing paintings that have been done over a two to three month period sees the images that have been preconsciously coming out in the pictures and therefore gains greater insight.

Through the permanence of emotional material in therapeutic art psychological issues from earlier in a session, from a previous session or from between sessions are available for further therapeutic discussion and exploration. Indeed, a primary value of art in therapy is the ability to repeatedly return, through art production, to core material as its layers are worked through. In addition, that material which is initially brought forward and worked with in therapeutic art activities can be effectively further worked with in other activity or in the dynamics of the therapeutic process. Hall (1987) states:

The permanence and tangibility of the art products gives art therapy a dimension that other therapies don't have (especially the talking therapies) - not only can you refer back to your creation and look again later, and it won't have changed, but also you can express things by what you do afterwards with what you've created - that can be very expressive. You could destroy them, mutilate them, hide them prominently, display them, give them to people - lots of possibilities. (p. 181)

Birtchnell (1984) suggests art activity alone can not be fulling healing. The permanence of art allows the therapeutic elements of art to be taken into other dimensions of therapy. For example, Birtchnell (1984) states, "various forms of aesthetic pursuit, whilst being satisfying in themselves, do not bring emotions and conflicts near enough to the surface; or if they do, we do not hold on to them long enough to work through them" (p. 37). Birtchnell's solution to this dilemma is to encourage the artist: to further dialogue with the art; to take an aspect of the picture and make it larger; to become a component of the drawing and speak of one's experience; to create the space in which to have deeper emotional catharsis in relation to the issues in the art work; or to, in some form, further "psychologically dismantle" what is behind the art production for the creator.

BODY EXPRESSION THROUGH NATALISM AND NATALISTIC ACTIVITY

Many of the experiences -- life threats, unmet needs -- which occur pre- and perinatally are physical. Traumas from the preverbal period are often experienced, interpreted and stored in the body as body consciousness (Buchheimer, 1987; Lake, 1981). Buchheimer (1987) proposes that early pre- and perinatal, "memory storage exists throughout the body" (p. 53). Buchheimer allows that:

In making this proposal, I draw heavily on empirical observations in regressive-abreactive therapy, where focusing on any part of the body in different ways, mentally or physically, can trigger a birth primal, or where people in intense regressions can reproduce the sensory perceptions of infancy and early childhood. (p. 53)

Modalities of psychotherapy like Holotropic Breathwork (Grof, 1985), Mind/Body Therapy (Rossi & Cheek, 1988), Primal Regression (Noble, 1993) which focus on some form of body or somatic expression are generally the ones which elicit and process pre- and perinatal experience (Noble, 1993). Pre- and perinatal experience is perceived and laid down in the psyche before cognitive/language thought develop. Early feelings and memories may be stored in regions of the brain and body which are outside the direct perimeters of cognitive language process. Therefore reconnection with, and retrieval and processing of, significant early experience in the psyche occur frequently outside usual language memory.

Common modes of regression to the pre- and perinatal period have often incorporated nonverbal expression, such as spontaneous sounds and body movements. These approaches rely heavily on body awareness, and trusting and following the natural expressive urges of the body. It is suggested that these primitive forms of release are expressions of body memory (Buchheimer, 1987; Farrant, 1993). One artist in a natalistic art workshop experienced somatic sensations of birth which were familiar to her through deep feeling regressive therapy. As the feelings surfaced, Deborah struggled with her decision whether to drop into the feelings, allowing an abreaction, or to interact with the feelings through art. Deborah states:

I eventually decided to try to stay with the pressure and feelings, without going into an abreaction, and see what would happen through moving the emerging feeling experiences into the art work I was doing.

There was a headache on the side of the head which had as a component of it an urge to push. There was also a feeling of pressure which had along with it an urge to push with my head. As I was pushing and drawing part of the sense of pressure was coming from inside, and part of the feeling of pressure was the reality of pushing up against the wall. I felt like I was pushing and like I was not getting anywhere.

The side of my head which was feeling the pressure and pushing was like the area of my body during birth which took in the stress and feelings of not getting anywhere. While drawing, my head was feeling the pressure of trying to move forward and being blocked by my mother. I sort of felt flattened there. It felt like I went through the birth canal with the side of my head. It was like my birth might have been a kind of slamming against the wall.

The head pain, which is all the red at the bottom of the womb in the drawing, felt like birth and like my head was slamming into the birth canal. As I negotiated my way through the birth canal there was pain. As well there was rage but it was not mine, it was my mother's rage. I felt like when my head slammed against the uterus, it was like I was slamming against her rage.

People can internally experience some of the body memory feelings and physical sensations of birth. Primal regression to early conditions may be called a revivification of birth or womb experiences -- they are experienced as a reliving of the original birth experience. These body memories may quite adeptly be expressed though art activity.

Body memories can bring forward a vague and obscure sense of conditions at birth, or conversely, quite vivid birth imagery may surface for the regressed person. After working on two natalistic drawings in a workshop setting, Brigette shared with the group her experience of the first drawing:

While doing the drawing I was laying on my left side. The first thing I was aware of was a feeling in my neck of wanting to twist almost in a corkscrew motion. The need to turn is the green spiral at the top of the drawing. The feeling inside, at first, was of having lots of room and then of being pressed in on and the black arrows was just wanting more space. There was a great ambivalence about coming out of the womb. There was a sense of: in here it is quite cosy and safe but I was also feeling cramped and I wanted out, so the two were going on together. Then I was aware of my mom not wanting me to come out into the world. Like she had something huge invested in me staying in there and her staying pregnant. There was a feeling of her refusing, in a sense, to give birth to me. I was just aware of a lot of energy inside of the purple movements out. A feeling of wanting to move through water, almost like a swimming motion....

There was a sense of really early of having lots of room to begin with. Then being so enclosed, and even being aware of later on just how strong my will was to get out. The spiral on the drawing just feels like I'm going to get out of her.... I was very aware during the art process that I didn't want to stay in that in utero place...I wanted to reprogram my birth.

When the artist brings out body-felt experiences of birth, powerful emotions may be released, insights may be gained regarding life long behaviours or feelings, and the artist can re-envision a new course for her destiny. The shadows of the early experience, which are largely physical and occurred during a preverbal period, are addressed through somatic resources.

There is a connection between body experience and artistic expression. Sharpe (1950) suggests the artist "uses a knowledge that is diffused in his body, a body intelligence and bodily experience in dealing with emotional states" (p. 148). It would follow that art activity which engages the body as part of its process may have some facility for bringing to the surface "body knowledge" from preverbal pre- and perinatal experience. Preverbal/nonverbal experiences, which are felt so much in the body, are ushered forward through the expressions of artwork and other forms of non-verbal expression.

The experiences of the body can sometimes be represented in art images more readily than in words and language. People often sense in their bodies what they want to express with their creativity. In this context, art activity has the capacity to effectively express somatic sensation and feeling, or what some might call body memory. If art is able to express the body experience, then it can likely express the pre- and perinatal experiences which are stored in the body. Art coming from the body can be expressions of the non-verbal self.

While working with clay or other art materials, in addition to making a right brain/nonverbal hemisphere shift, the artist may tend to use less intellectualizing and more intuition or felt sense understanding by virtue of using the physical body to produce the art. McNiff (1981) makes the interesting observation, "The term 'visual art' is itself misleading in that the graphic and plastic arts are as tactile and kinaesthetic as they are visual.... art objects are extension of kinesis and inner movement" (p. 110). In viewing or creating a natalistic picture or manoeuvring a tactile or kinaesthetic action there can be thought and expression outside the context of words or language. As one artist drawing womb experiences said:

The natalism art was a totally new thing for me. I had never done anything like that where you don't really think. I found my left hand could draw what I didn't logically know. I would give the colours to my left hand and it would give the drawing. Sometimes the drawing would let out the feeling and I would move through another level by getting that feeling out with colour. I could move to the next feeling and just keep going through layer by layer. It was a great experience.

Through art activity, "sensory memories" can become more active components of consciousness simultaneously with the processing of psychological material by art activity (Rhyne, 1984). For example, the physicality of clay as a sculpting material makes people more aware of their kinaesthetic movement and tactile sensations. The artist becomes not only consciously and unconsciously aware of the shape and form of the clay, but also becomes more connected with awareness of the shape and form of her own body interacting with the clay. This increased presence with the physical self may draw the artist more into the body and assist the person in having greater body awareness or body consciousness. Painting and drawing also respond effectively to somatic urges and heightened body awareness.

One person came to a natalistic workshop with "a bit of a headache" and near the end of the evening she related that her head was "painfully throbbing as I was doing both of the drawings." She commented further, "The pain that is in my neck and forehead are in the drawing on the left. It is the red thing up at the top and the other red thing." By searching for greater specificity of the somatic sensation in the body and its expression in the drawing, the underlying somatic origin of the symptom can be focused in on. Rhyne (1984) states, "non-verbal activity is far more effective in bringing into awareness some memories that do not respond to words" (p. 82).

In exploring the headache the following dialogue occurred:

MI: Is the headache on the inside or on the outside?

Brigette: Oh it's more on the outside. It's right here [on the top side of the head] and it's right here at my neck [diagonally opposite to the other location].

MI: Can I touch those spots?

Brigette: Sure.

MI: So it's on the outside here? (Yeah) And then it's back here? (It's here) Right there. Ok and how much pressure? Would more or less pressure be congruent with the headache.

Brigette: More, way more.

MI: More? Is this right? Now as the pressure is applied does it feel like it has force or direction?

Brigette: Yeah.

As the external pressure became congruent with her inner experience there was a visible shift as Brigette seemed to let go of the pain. After doing art work about birth feelings the headache receded for the most part in response to applying the head pressure which seemed to simulate birth. The painful pressure of the birth canal was initially explored and processed through the natalistic art. Further witnessing, acknowledging and validation occurred through sharing in a group and through a short piece of birth-refacilitation body work. Cynthia notes:

In terms of logical, rational brain kind of language memory, it doesn't make sense to have memories of conception; but in an impressionistic way it does make sense to me and I am willing to accept the impression and work with that impression. It feels right because it registers more in the heart than it does in the head. It's more of an intuition. It has changed me to look at my conception, I connect it with other childhood feelings that I don't want to be here and I hate being here and it's taking too long and I'm impatient and frustrated. That all seems to be part of my personality, it's the way I am.

In the womb I wasn't wanted, I knew I wasn't wanted. I knew it was unstable out there and I knew I had an unstable mother.

It has been suggested that both early and later memory can be stored in the body. The exact physiological linkages between cellular memory, body memory and neural central nervous system memory and thinking are not known. What is clear is that there are methods and approaches for expressing body memory and non-verbal thought. Gendlin's (1978) work in Focusing and Let Your Body Interpret Your Dreams (Gendlin, 1986) offers perceptive insights into the practical applications of felt sense forms of knowing, processing information and decision making.

As a form of body therapy, art activity has unique attributes to assist with identification, expression, resolution and repatterning of fundamental prenatal body sensations and somatic body memories. McNiff (1981):

All of the arts in therapy must repossess the body if they are to actualize their healing powers fully. The denial of the body by conventional psychotherapeutic practices and mental health institutions is but symptomatic of the lack of mind/body integration within the society at large and within the lives of thoses [sic] who deliver mental healths services. (pp. 110-111)

Natalism allows access to expression of early body trauma to permit resolution and healing.

NATALISM AS OBJECTIFICATION

Objectification is a form of therapeutic projection in which an issue or emotion is imaged in a transitional object outside of oneself. (Winnicott, 1971 a and b). Through therapeutic objectification an externalization of inner psychological material, and a degree of psychological distance and safety are created. The safety of distancing permits painful internal material to be worked on without some of its overpowering qualities. Successful natalistic objectification occurs when psychologically, elements of the pre- or perinatal emotions or issues are no longer only inside the body or mind. Through working with objectified material "out there" -- in the artwork -- abreaction, letting go, creating boundaries, distancing and/or nurturing others can occur or be greatly assisted.

Much of pre- and perinatal material which is brought to psychotherapy has a significant component of body memory or somatic sensation which is reminiscent of birth and early experience but which is often difficult to approach through language. Feher (1980) states, "Preverbal trauma, and illogic in its basic form, are particularly related to bodily sensation, because that is the medium of expression most accessible to the infant. It is also the most problematic" (p. 125). The problem of expressing difficult to label or describe sensation is partially resolved by therapeutic modalities encouraging body movements and primitive sounds, but this kind of abreaction has its limitations. The objectification of art productions allows nonverbal body sensations a visual form of expression on a piece of paper; or a tactile, kinaesthetic and visual form of expression in clay sculpturing. Sarah found sculpting allowed her to externalize somatic birth and womb feelings of being entangled with her mother. Sarah experienced:

In my natalistic sculptures major feelings came out which were about being merged with her. Not so much in a blissful way, but in a sense of being used. Feelings of constantly being taken from, being eaten or being consumed by her came up. Like before birth she was feeding off of me.

It seems I connect with those feelings through using art because the art comes from a non-verbal place. I experience the birth and womb feelings more in my body. I think part of the satisfaction of the art work is in producing something that matches and conveys the internal feeling.

Inner experience can be directed outward into the natalistic artwork and held there for immediate or later reflection -- this is what I mean by objectification. As Case and Dalley (1992) submit, "The art work acts as a receiver, a womb for the artist's projections" (p. 125). There are numerous preverbal issues and feelings which can be quite overwhelming to approach directly and are more accessible through some form of transitional object. For Cynthia, the natalistic drawing became a womb from which she could view and gain control of the "black and ominous" feelings which merged with her during the prenatal period. Through the drawing she worked at identifying and separating from the blackness which had overwhelmed her for so long. Cynthia shares:

On the drawing I wrote "This is my place, leave me alone". Outside of that place is all the negativity. Inside the womb [in the drawing] it felt somewhat safe even though it felt very black and ominous around the outside.

The artwork serves as a mirror whereby the artist may finally accept his or her inner world. Objectification in natalistic art allows people to discover or further approach material they have been consciously or unconsciously avoiding. Through the tangible artistic product an emotion or issue the person is having difficulty with is presented to the person for reflection (Wadeson, 1980). Byers (1991) notes the difficulty of working with early and overwhelming preverbal material, questioning, "can the person 'bear to live' or 'live to bear' the reexperiencing of the original pain in the separation of child from its mother which occurred at the nonverbal stage of development?" (p. 26).

The creation of psychological distance can be particularly helpful in working with life threatening trauma, or other emotionally overwhelming or confusing birth material. Projected into the transitional object of the natalistic artwork, the artist views the powerful preverbal feelings in a vantage point outside herself. As Johanna experienced:

The release I experienced in drawing is: like the pain is a feeling that I can not feel in words; but I can put the feeling in a colour or a shape; and when I do that then the pain goes into the drawing and the pain is not in me any more.

A drawing also validates my experience because sometimes I do not want to know I had a painful experience, but doing a drawing lets me know I did. I don't know exactly how to say it, but when I can see something on paper that is something that is in me it kind of validates why I feel that way I do. It really releases a part of the experience and that part of the experience can leave me so that I do not have to carry it.

The sense of no longer having to carry the pain of old traumas is a significant element in psychological healing and recovery. Art activity has particular merit in objectifying difficult to conceptualize nonverbal anxiety and emotional pain. When the early wounds are identified and externalized in art there can be an accompanying sense of being released or letting go. In working with the longer processes of healing deep wounds, the images in the art, and the art work as container, allow the artist to hold onto issues and feeling as they are being worked through. The identification and release of trauma or the nurturing and repatterning can be facilitated through objectification with natalistic art. Susan was able to contain in her art deep losses as an infant; additionally, her art work assisted her in looking after her helpless infant self. Two days before a natalistic workshop, powerful early feelings surfaced for Susan, and as she explains:

I got into bed and I couldn't get out. It's like I could move my fingers and toes and turn over in bed, but I was not able to get out of bed in a way that a little baby can't. It took me about an hour and a half the day of the workshop to overcome it. In my mind I think it is ridiculous that I can not get up. I was hungry, it was time for lunch and I finally was able to make myself get up. The feeling was baby stuff and I did a drawing to express it. I felt I had to draw a baby, so I drew a baby. Then there was a crib, and then a baby was in the crib in the drawing. It just developed, I didn't know what it was going to be when I started. Then it was a baby with the bottle propped, and then a little baby and I had to feed itself [sic].

Saturday I ate cereal for breakfast, fruit and bread for lunch, and Cream of Wheat for supper.

I would take the baby drawing and hold it against me and talk to it. It felt like something important was going on. The baby felt a need to be looked after. That was the feeling I had when I was in bed, I was hungry, I wanted to get up and get a hot lunch, yet I needed to be looked after.

Susan spontaneously commented, "I had to feed itself," as though she was commenting about taking care of the baby in the drawing and the baby inside herself. London (1989) relates how the inside becoming externalized through art allows transformation:

Once we create imagery that honestly represents how life feels from the inside, there is a deep sense of personal empowerment and a new degree of private certainty as a result of having finally touched down to the original bedrock of our original self. (p. 22)

The object of the art can become a container to temporarily hold and allow reviewing of deep and powerful emotions. Through objectification in the art work, the original infant or prenatal self can be touched and embraced with new messages which give nurture and empowerment.

Art works and the fluidity of the art in progress are particularly apt in serving as objects supporting transformation. Byers (1991) suggests, "If the artwork, the silent partner, can be considered to incorporate some of the qualities that Winnicott (1974) refers to as a 'transitional object," it holds the power to allow the client to replay original separation and identity building" (p. 26).

Through art, a third relationship object or third party is introduced to the therapy experience and setting. From an objects relationship model (Winnicott, 1971 a and b), the therapist is seen as one object and the client as another object; the artwork and process become a third object. In this manner issues and feeling which might be difficult to approach, even though transference onto the therapist, can be projected into the art and then worked through. Byers (1991) considers art's function as a transference object:

The transferential elements between client and therapist may be substantially reduced or diffused through the use of the "silent partner" embodied in the art work.... projection is portrayed in the image in contrast to the therapist being the sole receiver of projections in the transference" (p. 25).

The object can be explored in many ways to increase personal understanding and insight. The object can be manipulated in its relationship to the external environment and the inner self. When an art production serves for objectification there can be a movement closer to, or further away from, difficult psychological content. Johanna suggests that the art process brought her both closer to and further away from deep psychological material:

While I was doing the conception and implantation drawing in the natalistic art workshop I had some questions about the validity of what I was doing. After I saw the picture it was ok and valid.

While I was doing the drawing there was some experience of my rational, logical mind being a bit detached from the experience of doing art and having the art take me to conception. In one way I detached to do the drawing and then in another way I reconnected in doing the drawing.

For me the experience of drawing and doing it was very real. There is a way I knew it was real. Having the experience on paper, in a way, proves that I was there and went through the experience. It was a beautiful experience which I could not have done with out becoming detached and being able to just draw it. That feels like another gift I got from doing the natalism work.

In some ways the experience was like getting to know more parts of me that I was not conscious of. In part the realness of experience made it valid. I found it quite amazing.

For Johanna the objectification of art allowed a change in proximity to psychological material. The objectification through art also allowed an experiential and visual validation of her prenatal experience. As well as assisting identification and exploring and expressing trauma in the psyche, the phenomenon of objectification can allow positive and nurturing attributes of the inner self to have an avenue through which to assist with healing. Through a natalistic creation, an artist could more clearly observe the healing process; Cynthia considers:

Through the purple complimenters in the drawing I brought a sense of loving presence back to heal the wounded prenate in the womb. For me purple is a healing colour and so is yellow. They are calm and healing.

In the drawing there is a lot of chaos to have to heal. It seems like there was some way in which that connection through the art was healing for me. Somehow the art work had a dramatic impression on a certain quality of me feeling good about myself, and feeling safe was changing.

In encountering or reviewing the objectified artwork, the artist can literally change the natalistic painting or sculpture and in effect be manipulating and changing the legacy of the early internal conflicts or wounds. In the simplest of examples: a black squiggly mark on the paper may represent anger which is flat and restricted from drugs at birth. The artist can add some red flaming out from the of dead anaesthetized anger, giving it a momentum of expression; or even turn the drawing over thereby saying no to the numbing; or in some other way move, manoeuvre or shift the drawing and the energy which is there on the paper, outside of the artist.

As the natalistic drawing progresses, the red and black can be surrounded with blue or green to contain or release the energy or feelings, or transform the red and black in some manner. In replacing the inner experience in an art piece to examine and transform it, it is likely that a corresponding transformation of elements of the inner world takes place. The transformations taking place on the paper are internalized and incorporated by the psyche. A participant in a natalistic workshop series allows:

Drawing One was womb surround and trauma; Drawing Two was a healing drawing done which overlaid on the trauma drawing. In doing the drawing I went through the actual birth. The blackness is on the inside of the womb and then the yellow impression was put on the outside. Over the series, the black started changing through using purple, black and red until eventually I internalized that healing womb self.

One natalistic workshop artist, Brigette, did a drawing of a large black mass with "a tiny patch of green" as "something inviting up there." Brigette shared:

The black tells me I am not really wanted. The green says I am wanted. I had to work very hard to find that little bit of green. That fits for me in that I work really hard to find a little bit of goodness for myself. After sharing the drawing in the group I felt a little bit amused and a lot less sad than I did earlier. Michael suggested that later in the week I do a great big drawing of just the green, because it was so little. Then to do a second big drawing of all green with a little spot of black, just reverse the order of things. I had an instant reaction when he said it that somehow doing that would make the black look less awful.

The principles of artistic objectification with early experience can ensue from interacting with one's own art or with the natalistic content in another's artwork. Verny (1994) notes:

Other ways of visually evoking memories of womb life are: showing clients slides or movies of prenatal development or asking clients to look at illustrations in books such as Lennart Nilsson's A Child is Born. Attending a birth can also be a pretty powerful trigger of one's own birth memories. (p. 183)

These images are not only triggers but also serve as containers for projections of the self. When [the] clients have insights or feelings projected on an art object they can spend an extended time reflecting on it. Consciously and unconsciously non verbal experience and somatic knowledge are being processed in the responses to [the] external early life imagery.

INDEX:
THERAPEUTIC PROPERTIES
OF NATALISM

Page 1

• NATALISTIC THERORY DEVELOPMENT
• NATALISM IN ANCIENT ART AND RITUAL
• NONVERBAL CONSCIOUSNESS
• THERAPEUTIC PROPERTIES OF NATALISM

Page 2A

• Natalism as a Holistic Process
• Psychological Imagery in Natalism
• Decreased Defences Through Natalistic Activity
• Natalism as Expression of the Unconscious

Page 2B

• Permanence of Natalism
• Body Expression Through Natalism and Natalistic Activity
• Natalism as Objectification
• Emotional Release Through Natalism

Page 2C

• Assisting Therapeutic Pacing With Natalism
• Spatial Matrix in Natalism and Natalistic Activity
• Natalistic Activity as Altered State of Consciousness
• Natalism Assists the Preverbal to Become verbal

Page 2D

• Creative and Physical Energy in Natalism
• Repatterning Through Natalism
• Physical Repatterning
• Repatterning Numbing Qualities of Anaesthesia

Page 2E

• Natalism as Psychological Induction and Suggestion
• Natalism as Communication
• A Life Force in the Womb
• Representation, Symbolism, Metaphor and Interpretation in Natalism