Appointment

Dr. Ora Golan and Professor Yahav on Printal Psychology

Hello Dr. Ora Golan, an expert in neutralizing emotional barriers from the Ora Golan Center, and Professor Rivka Yahav, Head of the Interdisciplinary Clinical Center and Head of the School of Psychotherapy at the University of Haifa. Professor Yahav, what does it mean to print psychology?

Professor Yahav: Printal psychology talks about the connection between parents and the fetus already during pregnancy. It refers to events that the parents experience and in fact the baby perceives and experiences them. We know that the uterus is not a protected bubble.

What kind of emotional barriers can be created at such an early age of fetuses?

Professor Yahav: In fetuses, we know that all the baby’s organs develop, so this is a very critical period. We know that the mother’s emotional stressors can affect the fetus. For example, when the Twin Towers collapsed, mothers who predicted the collapse of the Twin Towers, their children responded with more post-traumatic effects than other children. They were at increased levels of restlessness, perhaps due to high cortisone levels that entered the bloodstream. Another example could be for example from our workshops; Very ambitious parents arrive. And you know, a place of unwanted pregnancy can also greatly affect a child’s identity, his feelings and his self-confidence. In the first place, a child who feels insecure because they do not want him, has lifelong consequences.

Ora, you actually encounter these barriers that come to you at a later age for treatment.

Ora Golan: That’s right. We have an emotional system that remembers and files everything that happened to us from the age of fetal formation to the present, and everything that is significant is filed there. For example, a 9-year-old boy who came to me, terribly ill, who had medical tests done to him and found nothing, and is constantly sick. When we test, it is possible by muscle resistance, text, gentle touch and imaging to identify barriers. In this case we reached the fetal period, at the age of 5 months, and when we asked the mother what it was, she says that they recognized that something was wrong with him in the tests, and then until they found out that everything was fine it took two to three weeks. At this time she was in insane anxiety, and this was a pattern absorbed by the child and manifested in a certain form of weakness he had, as for example in this case in the form of illnesses.

So the treatment is recommended for pregnant women or children and adults?

Professor Yahav: I can tell you that at our Interdisciplinary Clinical Center we treat several levels. We work with pregnant women, with pregnant parents. We have workshops for pregnant parents where we teach them to neutralize anxiety, neutralize ambivalence and work on it. It also has a connection and implications for the feelings of the fetus. We do both group, workshop and individual work with the parents, in order to do a process where the parents are aware of the fact that their external lives affect the fetus’ psyche.

Ora Golan: I think it is good for people to do the treatment as soon as they think of becoming parents. Once the emotional barriers are neutralized it allows people to be more calm and relaxed, make better choices, make priorities and exercise better judgment. At a later stage we care for children from the age of 6, then they can do the treatment consisting of four stages of dealing with failure, competition and success. The change just happens on its own, a lot of times people forget even what the original feeling they came with was.