IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF ‘RE-IMPRINTING’, WE NEED TO DISCUSS THE CONCEPT OF ‘IMPRINTING FIRST’
Concept
“An imprint is a trace or mark from a learning process. It is not just a traumatic event in a person’s experience; it is also a belief that shapes one’s identity. An imprint does not necessarily have to be traumatic. It is a reflection on one’s identity.”
The term “imprint” was first elaborated by Konrad Lorenz, who studied the behavior of hatched-out goslings. Lorenz found that for about one day after birth, goslings would seek their “maternal” figure. These birds have a particular structure whereby they define their mother. All their mother has to do is to set in motion. If something moves, the goslings will follow.
For instance, Lorenz found that the goslings would follow his movements as he walked. When the filial imprinting period was over, the goslings kept following Lorenz, even after their real mother was shown to them. In fact, they ignored their actual mother. This is why, on sunrise, the goslings were usually found cuddling around Lorenz’s boots at his porch, instead of lying in their nest.
In fact, one of the goslings had imprinted on a ball as its mother. If the ball was kicked around, the gosling would follow it. When this gosling became an adult goose, it did not court or mate any member of its species. Instead, it developed a behavior whereby it tried to mate with anything that was round. The above shows that by adult age, its filial imprint had been turned into a mating imprint.
The same occurs in humans to a certain extent. A physically abusive father will cause his daughter to develop an interesting pattern of behavior at her adult age. Irrespective of what she may choose to do or what she reasonably knows, she will frequently find herself engaged in abusive relationships. Her imprint is like a branding archetype that shapes the sort of relationship she ought to establish with any male.
“A physically abusive mother will cause her daughter to abuse her offspring too. The daughter will hate herself for that, but she won’t know why. This suggests that our early experiences not only affect our feelings, but also shape quite deep models for our future relationships.”
Source: R. Dilts / Cómo cambiar creencias con la PNL (“How Can We Change our Beliefs Using NLP”) / Sirio, pages 129-130
Re-Imprint
Re-imprinting is a re-learning technique, it is about reorganizing or re-programming an imprint.
Purpose
“The purpose of re-imprinting is to heal a systemic structure. It is not just about supplying a resource to an individual, so that he can make a change in his personal history. It is about providing information that was unavailable during the individual’s imprinting period. This information will give a different meaning to its recipient’s experiences: his ‘frozen’ experiences will be released and his hidden emotions will be altered. This restructuring process can occur thanks to our nerve cell’s plasticity.”
Source: R. Dilts / Cómo cambiar creencias con la PNL (“How Can We Change our Beliefs Using NLP”) / Sirio, page 128
Synaptic plasticity
“The concept of synaptic plasticity has been developed mainly though studies pertaining to the mind and related learning processes. Synaptic plasticity refers to the changes in the variable duration of synaptic functions and the origins of external stimuli that condition learning.
In varying degrees, Lugaro & Ramón and Cajal each argued that the learning process involves functional plastic changes in the properties and interconnections of neurons. Hence, the learning process may be the result from a morphological alteration of neural interconnections, akin to the phenomenon that occurs during the synaptic formation in embryonic life.
Even after the inter-neural wiring is genetically established, the strength or efficiency of some connections is not fully determined. These circuits can cause their attributes to change as a consequence of their own activity. Learning implies a persistent activity conducted by interconnected neural chains.
The plasticity of a nerve system refers to this system’s capacity for anatomic and functional modification in response to environmental, internal and/or lesion-related stimuli. It is common knowledge that axons can spread, generating new intercellular connections. It is also known that neuronal networks are plastic; in other words, they can change as they develop. These modifications chiefly occur at the level of the contact points among nerve cells; i.e., the synapses. However, the nerve system’s function is not reduced to neural activities, but also includes the activity of the glia cells that can double their numbers. These glial cells (their name “glial” [Greek for “glue”] is derived from a belief that these cells acted as inter-neural connectors) are responsible for the creation and maintenance of a micro-environment around the neurons.
This micro-environment is critical for good operation. These cells are also important for synaptic renewal; that is, disconnection and creation of new axons, with a consequent synaptic maturation. Therefore, neural plasticity is unthinkable in the absence of these cells that account for half of the total mass of the nerve tissues. The learning process, the memory acquisition and the changes in any organism as a result from external stimuli take place at the synaptic level. The synaptic alteration is a two-staged process: firstly, the existing synapses are disconnected; and secondly, new synapses are generated by axon proliferation and the intervention of growth factors.”
Source: Francisco J. Rubia / ¿Qué sabes de tu cerebro? (“What do You Know about your Brain?”) / Temas de hoy 2006; pages 158-159
Principles underpinning the functional structure of the central nervous system (“CNS”):
» Intra-hemispheric interconnectivity: bent fibers, upper and lower longitudinal nerve fascicle.
» Intrer-hemispheric interconnectivity: corpus callosum, trigon, anterior white commissure.
» Centralization.
» Neural-axial hierarchy.
» Cerebral laterality.
» Structural and functional specialization.
» Topographic map.
» Neuroplasticity.
All the functionally related motor and primary sensory regions of the brain are interconnected by association and commissure fibers. The cortical association areas are interconnected, and the primary cortical areas are indirectly interconnected through the association areas. The homologous areas in both hemispheres are connected to each other through inter-hemispheric fibers. This cerebral interconnectivity permits a constant interaction within each hemisphere and between both hemispheres, and allows for global and dynamic adjustment of responses.
The capacity to analyze and summarize multiple sources of information and to generate different responses illustrates the centralized structure of our brain operation.
The information supplied by sensory receptors arrives at the CNS, where it is integrated (coding, comparing, storing and decision-making) by association neurons or inter-neurons. From there, a response is sent to an effector. Synaptic plasticity means the ability to reorganize and modify functions for adaptation to internal and/or external changes.
The brain cell plasticity helps repair cortical circuits, integrate other areas for the discharge of modified functions, and respond to various conditions. Our brain capacity for adaptation to changes also has significant implications for learning.
Our nerve system has a considerably high numerical backup; in other words, our available number of neurons exceeds the number required for our normal functions. Our nerve system’s installed capacity exceeds the actual capacity we will use in our entire lives. Here is an easy-to-understand example: If we compare a gymnast with an ordinary man, it would appear that the former has a different nerve system; however, any study of the structural attributes of both individuals will find no difference between their anatomic composition, and the only distinction lies in the establishment by the former of new functional relations; i.e., the gymnast has expanded his application of his backup capacity. This example clearly illustrates the plasticity of our nerve system as the foundation for our learning processes and the rehabilitation of functions and perceptions that have been either lost or structured differently.
When a neuron becomes functionally isolated and is deprived of synaptic connection, this neuron degenerates and dies. Metabolic exchanges occur in the axons’ synaptic terminals, as well as in the generation of protection and growth factors in the impaired synaptic regions. These factors cause a constant interaction among synaptically related neurons, and between neurons and their effectors or receptors. Such an interaction involves chemicals that travel both ways along the axonal flow. Hence, every time a neuron becomes isolated or its synaptic tie is severed, that neuron degenerates and dies.
In this context, the application of available, albeit hitherto poorly functioning, synapses is called exposure. In its own dendritic field, each neuron establishes a large number of synaptic connections with other neurons that are often located at distant and/or different levels of the nerve system. In a rehabilitating process, “exposure” can be understood as the effect of repetitive training.
The integration of new information facilitates the interconnection with new neural networks, as well as the disconnection, isolation and death of previously established circuits.
Aplication to Bioanalysis and Emotional inversion BEI
Once the attending specialist as successfully developed a rapport with his patient, identified his patient’s conflict through effective questions, completed an investigation into his patient’s different perceptual positions, and joined his patient on a tour along the latter’s timeline up to his programming conflict, resources must be anchored to the actors of the patient’s experience, and the information that had been hitherto missing must be shared among these actors through re-imprinting. In this manner, the newly provided information helps de-configure the existing programs, and other neural networks are structured with different connections that add wellbeing to the patient, relax his corporal structure and automatically change his use of language. In consequence, the patient experiences a change in beliefs and behavior, his illness is cured or healed, and an avenue to his healthiness is identified.
An effective re-imprinting requires that the participating bio-decoder has a full understanding of the NLP principles; in particular, as follows:
Every behavior has a positive intent or function for his actor.
For the purposes of BEI, the above principle means as follows:
Every symptom or illness has a positive intention or role to play in its host system. This fact must always be considered, even if the bio-decoder does not understand it from a cognitive perspective.
A person is not impacted by his experiences, but his reading of such experiences. Through NLP, these readings can be modified. Our day-to-day realities are just our interpretation of our sensory experiences. We interpret the world around through our senses. An experience that is remembered can reproduce a flow in our bodies, just like a real experience. If we imagine an event that cannot be perceived as real, that event will be as “real” as any other perception.
The physical world is a response from its observer, just like a table is a response from its viewer. Our perception of reality depends on both our nerve system’s participating receptive instruments and the way these instruments are applied. Our true image of reality is a function of the tools we use to observe that reality. The world is as we see it.
The physical world outside consists of information and energy that we experience through our sensors. These sensors translate our received information into smells, tastes, textures, etc. Such translated sensory inputs are converted to nerve impulses that are sent to our brain for decoding and reorganization as images, sounds and inner feelings, consistently with the outside reality. All these thousands of simultaneously occurring functions are perfectly coordinated by an unconscious intelligence. We don’t rule our bodies, this intelligence does. Our body responses to our environment are also a function of this intelligence.
The application of re-imprinting techniques produces changes in our perception of painful experiences. Through a re-learning process, we can alter the inner codes of our past experiences and heal our memories. Once these memories/cross-generational or temporary programs have been modified in their original (programming) context, the energy or emotion that had been kept “frozen” somewhere in our bodies can be reactivated, and consequently, the conflict, symptom and/or illness will disappear.