Prenatal Influences Restrict Change

Part of our biological constitution is that we humans are born 12-15 months too soon in comparison to other animals similar to us, such as elephants, which have a pregnancy of 21 months. Therefore, we have the condition of the so-called “physiological prematurity.” The reason for this is the upright position that requires a stable structure of the pelvis and the big brain. To enable birth under these conditions, evolution shortened pregnancy to nine months (see Stephen Jay Gould, “Human Babies as Embryos,” Ever since Darwin, 1992, 70-78).

The consequence of this is that coming into the world as the first big change in life for humans is a basic adventure, described by Otto Rank as the “Trauma of Birth,” by Carl Jung as a model for the “Journey of the Heroes” (see also Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 1949), and by Lloyd deMause as “Fetal Drama.” The result of this is that every change in life triggers this basic pattern. Therefore every change is a big event managed on

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 the tribal level as transitional rites that have the structure of a regression to the womb and being reborn in the puberty rites, dying as a child to be reborn as an adult (see Ludwig Janus, The Enduring Effects of Prenatal Experience: Echoes from the Womb, 1997, available to download at www.Ludwig-Janus.de).

Because of the “physiological prematurity,” family and society serve as a replacement container for the too early lost primal home of the womb. Changes mean on the emotional level that this replacement home is again lost. In this situation the biological change of generations is the big motor of historic development: under good conditions the first generation has a new idea on the cortical level, the midbrain and brain stem react with anxiety and slow down so as not to lose the replacement home that they got from their parents; the second generation can analyze the contradiction between the ideas of the parents and their habits and find in their transitional process of puberty a new solution of a better balance; and the third and fourth generation are able to transform the habits of the earlier generation and can really change the society.

Learning processes are of special importance in these transgenerational processes.            In the field of psychotherapy the problems of change have a similar form: the patient has an intellectual insight into his problem (cortex), then he has to work it through on the emotional level of transference (midbrain), and then he can integrate both levels by using his abilities of reflection and learning.

In relation to the examples put forth in Paul Elovitz’ “Reflections on How People and Society Change” symposium article: Jefferson had the idea of freedom of all humans, but on the midbrain-governed level of habits and emotions he was used to having slaves; the next generation and the generation after that saw the contradiction and reflected on how to bring a better balance to the reality of life. In terms of women’s rights, Olympe de Gouges had seen the contradiction in the ideas of the French revolution which only focused on the rights of men, and she demanded rights for women. Because of habits rooted in the midbrain of the patriarchal culture, several processes of intergenerational reflecting and learning were needed to realize the change to equal rights for men and women.

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