http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume5/j5_4_2.htm

Body Memories: And Other Pseudo-Scientific Notions of "Survivor Psychology"

Susan E. Smith*

Another example of an exploitive body memory theory is L. Ron Hubbard's (1985) eccentric quasi-psychological, philosophical system known as Scientology or Dianetics. The foundational theory of L. Ron Hubbard's self-proclaimed "mathematically precise, exact science" of Dianetics is "engrams."

Physiological psychologist Karl Lashley used the term "engram" in his 25-year search for precise storage sites of memory traces in the brains of rats.

Lashley taught rats to run mazes and systematically removed sections of their cortexes. Lashley was disappointed repeatedly as the rats became increasingly impaired according to how much brain tissue they lost, but they were still able to navigate the mazes. By 1956 Lashley was forced to conclude that memory traces or "engrams" did not have localized sites of storage but were diffused throughout the brain (Hooper & Teresi, 1986).

The results of scientific research have never deterred crackpots who have latched onto a seductive, potentially profitable and self-aggrandizing theory.

By 1948 L. Ron Hubbard had adopted Lashley's theory of engrams, but ignored the results of his 25 years of research. Hubbard decided that all neuroses, psychoses and illnesses were caused by cellular recordings or imprints and then claims he wrote Dianetics ()(), the 614-page book, in three weeks (Gardner, 1956). According to Martin Gardner, author of Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (), this is not hard to believe because nothing in the book resembles a scientific report and the "case studies" were constructed from Hubbard's memory and imagination (Gardner, 1956).

Dianetics is a Greek word meaning "thought" and according to Hubbard's philosophy, words are "imprinted" in the cells of the body, particularly in the developing fetus and even in a sperm or an egg prior to conception. According to Hubbard's theories - which bear striking similarities to "body memory" notions and the "memory retrieval "practices of current sexual abuse therapies - the subconscious mind, or "reactive mind" is completely literal and all uncomfortable sensations, painful experiences, or words heard in the womb and in early childhood are imprinted in the cells and literally interpreted and manifested as neuroses, psychosomatic disorders, and diseases by the body throughout life unless they are "audited out." Auditing is merely a process of hypnosis, which is called a "dianetic reverie." The client is regressed and aggressively questioned and coerced to make connections between current problems and diseases to early memories or pre-birth traumas (Gardner, 1956; Hubbard, 1985).

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