Quote:
Originally Posted by MoxieDoxie
Apparently implicit memories are preverbal....before the age of 4. How the hell do you heal preverbal trauma?
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The other way round, preverbal memories (ie memories from before the child has fully developed speech) are largely implicit (although children are learning some language from <2), but you have implicit memory throughout your life, it's a deeper mode of remembering (or set of modes to be precise as it has several components) than declarative or explicit memory (which relies on conscious forms of representation such as language and symbols). So any event that affects you on the level of senses, feelings and embodied memory creates implicit memory.
How you heal it, in my view, is by tapping into embodied and non-verbal forms of expression (e.g through art, psychodrama, music, activities, dance etc) and then using explicit forms of representation (eg writing, symbolisation) to help make sense of and work through them, while at the same time practising distress tolerance techniques in order to get through each day while doing this.
e.g. my art therapist helped me understand that when I paint it's like I'm tapping into that small child trying to be heard but not yet able to speak in words, and translating it through my own creative skills into forms I can start to make sense of.