ENVIRONMENTAL STIMULUS REDUCTION AS A TECHNIQUE TO EFFECT THE REACTIVATION OF CRUCIAL REPRESSED MEMORIES.

Abstract

Any relative reduction of afferent input alters the concurrent and subsequent state of psychological activity. This has been evident ever since man first bedded down to sleep during the dark and silent hours of the diurnal cycle with eyes closed to minimize differences in light stimulation; in a recumbent posture to reduce his anti-gravity tonic postural reflexes; immobile to lessen kinesthetic input; under covers which would reduce changes in touch and temperature and surface pressure. All of this preparatory ritual serves to reduce input to the orienting and alerting mechanisms from distance receptors, and also those closer warnings from variations in pressure and contact on the skin. It also limits the input from muscles, joints, body movement, balance and posture. Therefore what has erroneously been called sensory deprivation (but which is more correctly called relative afferent isolation) has been important to us from time immemorial. More recently it has been subjected to experimental investigation. For a long time there has been the implication that this also affects the accessibility of past experiences to recall. Yet this paper is one of the first studies which has been made (albeit in a somewhat unorthodox fashion) of the effects of reducing input on the accessibility of repressed material. Studies of this kind can have importance for the theory and technique of psychotherapy and also for understanding the processes of dissociation, repression and recall. It is for this reason that we are publishing this condensation of the long and detailed report which the author has made of his extensive experiments on himself.