20/08/2025
Life in the Womb
by Dr. Jaco Naudé
In analytical psychology, as developed by Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung, a distinction is made between the existence of the conscious and the unconscious.
The concept of the conscious refers to a large number of areas in the brain that manage logical, rational functions, such as logical thinking, communication, studying, professional practice, participation in sports, enjoying nature and music, going to church, enjoying a theater or musical performance, and shopping. The conscious, therefore, represents the parts of the brain we use to learn and engage with the world logically and in an organized way, participating in it actively and rationally.
From a psychoanalytical perspective, however, it is assumed that the conscious remembers little of our personal lives. Factual information we’ve learned—like water being wet and pure water boiling at 100 °C at sea level—is retained for life. However, personal interactions with the world are remembered far less. Let’s assume, hypothetically, that it's about 10%. For example: How did you feel when your umbilical cord was cut, and you were temporarily separated from your mother? You don’t know. The unconscious, however, knows exactly what happened at that moment.
The unconscious can be seen as the deepest parts of the human brain. Cozolino, the neurologist referenced in the first article, describes the unconscious as “the hidden layers of the brain.”
The term unconscious refers to processes in the brain that occur autonomously. This means the conscious parts have no influence on the functioning of unconscious processes but only experience their results. For instance, if you experience shock (consciously), the unconscious will immediately activate the adrenal glands through the autonomic nervous system to produce adrenaline for a fight-or-flight situation. The conscious cannot do this but experiences the results—such as an increased heart rate, accelerated breathing, and blood flowing from small muscles to larger muscles to provoke the desired reaction.
Broadly speaking, it can be assumed that the conscious operates through the central nervous system, while the unconscious operates through the autonomic nervous system.
Beyond controlling the autonomous biological functions of humans (such as heart rate, blood pressure, metabolism, pain management, blood clotting, and the immune system), the unconscious is also the great memory that remembers nearly all our interactions with the world and, most certainly, most of our forgotten traumas. Of course, memory can be incomplete or even incorrect. However, the quality of the memory is not as important to the therapist. The focus is on the content as it has been absorbed into the unconscious because it is this content that develops psychopathology.
This memory becomes active as early as the first month. Remember that, in the first article, we mentioned that the brain cells develop exponentially, very quickly, after conception and that as early as the first month after conception, 240,000 synaptic connections occur per hour. The brain houses genetic material supplied by the o**m and s***m, programming our complete development as humans. Additionally, the brain begins to absorb two other types of content: what happens to the baby before and during birth, as well as strong emotions transferred from the mother to the baby’s brain through the hormone endorphin.
Experiences the baby undergoes
Some babies get stuck in the birth canal and struggle to be born. Sometimes induction or forceps are used to ensure a safe delivery. In these cases, some babies experience anxiety, pain in the head, neck, and shoulders, or even a fear of death. In the case of a breech birth, the symptoms can be even worse. These practical biological circumstances can lead to psychopathological phenomena in some babies.
One of these is claustrophobia, which in most cases originates here. The narrow space of the birth canal, accompanied by anxiety, is transferred after birth to other narrow spaces such as elevators, tunnels, caves, and the interior of an airplane. This is how claustrophobia develops.
Treatment
I had a woman from another country in therapy for the treatment of pathological claustrophobia. The person had recently married, and in addition to her extreme fear of narrow spaces, she also experienced fear when her husband’s face came close to kiss her. In therapy, it was discovered that both she and her mother could have died during her birth. Each of them had a near-death experience. The fear of death (much worse than anxiety) that she experienced in the narrow birth canal was transferred to other confined spaces. Whenever she entered a narrow space, the fear of death overwhelmed her, and she was forced to leave—even when her husband tried to kiss her.
When she came to Pretoria for therapy, she had to take a sedative to get on the plane and sleeping pills to make the flight bearable. The therapy was successful after five sessions, and she returned to her country without medication.
Another example involved a person who, during therapy, revealed that they had experienced an electric shock at eight months of pregnancy. The person’s body visibly je**ed. The cause was that the mother, during the eighth month of pregnancy, had touched a live electric cord, which threw her (the mother) to the ground. That shock was transferred to the baby’s brain—something that, fortunately, was resolved therapeutically 26 years later.
A final example is the treatment of asthma. A student had such a severe asthma attack during their mock matric exams that they had to be taken to the hospital for treatment. The asthma symptoms had been present for a long time, but the stress of the exams worsened it. In therapy, it emerged that the person had suffocated during birth, which caused the asthma. After therapy, the asthma disappeared, and the student successfully completed their final exams without asthma
