Basic Perinatal Matrix II

Grof's Terms

Grof, Stanislav > COEX Systems, Dimensions of the Psyche, Inner Radar, Past Life Memories, Perinatal Matrices, Perinatal Realm, Psychedelic Therapy, Psycholytic Therapy, Usual Consciousness

List of Perinatal Matrices

Perinatal Matrices > BPM IV, Basic Perinatal Matrix I, Basic Perinatal Matrix II, Basic Perinatal Matrix III

Basic Perinatal Matrix II refers to the stage of perinatal experience that occurs immediately upon initiation of the birth process. During this period the highly sensitive fetus cannot avoid a negative experience. The fetus is highly sensitive to the chemical and electrical activities of the mother's body through the delivery process. This, coupled with the experience of being squeezed tightly through a birth canal in the next perinatal matrix III, will leave a negative imprint no matter how successful and unproblematic the delivery. For this reason, the experience of perinatal matrix IV is critical to achieving an acceptable resolution to the birth experience.

An ideal birth experience will be one where the infant experiences the climactic experience of birth as gently and calmly as is possible. Both parents should be present, the environment should be calm and dimly lit, gentle music should be playing, and professionals who are assisting should work to minimize fear, anxiety, and upset in order to ensure the fetus is ushered into the gentle, warm, and loving arms of the mother and father with the minimum possible disturbance. Any experience that strays from this ideal will create a negative COEX System whose energy will need to be discharged at a later date.

Negative COEX Systems that emerge around Perinatal Matrix II will involve the organism in an antagonistic and/or victim like relationship to the surrounding world. Having experienced an isolated and hostile delivery process, the Physical Unit will be primed for aggressive, submissive, helpless, and disconnected behavioral patterns. Depression at having been delivered cold and alone into a hostile world, anger and misogyny at the instigators (typically the mother, females, authority if in the presence of doctors). Passing into neuroticism we may find inferiority complexes, depression, and a predisposition to addictive behaviour (Grof, 1976). Psychotic sequelea, which may emerge if the individual has experienced significant additional trauma during the critical childhood years and/or dogmatic indoctrination into fear based religious systems, will often include delusions of persecution, paranoid thought patterns, visions of demons and hell, and extreme existential angst which may lead to suicidal ideation (i.e. leaving a hostile and unloving world).

It is important to note that a negative experience during the birth process need not lead to the development of a permanent negative COEX root. Assuming the child is received properly in the delivery room, and assuming the child is brought home to a warm, loving, safe, and connected environment in a loving, war, safe and connected society, the COEX trauma inevitably experienced during delivery process will be dissipated and replaced with positive COEX systems. Under current global conditions however, the dissipation of negative COEX systems never occurs leaving all individuals with negative COEX residuals of varying strength that may easily develop into the foundations of disconnection, neurosis, or psychosis and which may (under the current spiritually naive conditions on this planet) take decades for the individual to clear on their own (if they clear at all). Significant improvement in parental, educational, social, political, and economic conditions, and a rapid increase in the sophistication with which psychological professionals deal with their clients, will be required to properly address this issue.

References

Grof, Stanislav (1976). Realms of the Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research. New York: Viking Press

Grof, Stanislav (1985). Beyond the brain: Birth, death, and transcendence in psychotherapy. Albany, NY: State University of New York.

Footnotes

References