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We have been sent a morsel (the introduction to Section VI) of this collection of the papers of Dr David B. Cheek, a researcher and specialist in obstetrics and gynaecology. It is aimed at clinicians who use hypnosis in psychotherapy. The book intends to ‘capture the essence of mind—brain—body—cell gene connections’.
Section VI is called ‘Women's consciousness and psycho-biological clocks’. Although I found it interesting, I decided that I would have to know a lot more about human biology to assess its accuracy.
This small selection from a long list of papers has a perspective that is sympathetic to women's difference from men and other organisms. The authors quote Jung's essay, ‘A review of complex theory’, as a basis for their research. Briefly, they tackle the implications of his ‘very complicated’ idea that feeling-toned complexes have a wave-like character over regular periods of time, and are often established by emotional shock. This implies an interaction between the human genetic communication system and emotional experience.
Pregnancy, birth and child-rearing are examples of psycho-biological periods of traumatic change in women. Research is cited to show that memory loss after birth trauma is associated with oxytocin, which is described in the paper as an information substance released in massive amounts from the uterus during labour and after delivery to regulate lactation and maternal behaviour. Memory of the birth can be regained by hypnotherapy and is thus shown to have been ‘repressed’.
Looking thus at memory loss in pregnancy as a body—mind shift in women's consciousness Dr Cheek is tackling, it is said, ‘a challenge most of his (male) medical colleagues did not even know existed’, one result of the latter being ‘P.M.T.’, the pathologising of pre-menstrual states. His studies suggest that some metabolic products of the process of mind—body communication can be linked to the so-called ‘housekeeping genes’ and that this connection regulates cellular metab