How healing from dissociation might occur was first addressed in 1911 when founders of Neuroscience, Santiago Ramon y Cajal and Camillo Golgi won the Nobel Prize by proposing that human experiences gave birth to neurons in the brain, creating lines of memory that connected to each other through electrical circuits. By the 1940s neuroscientists claimed that as memory grew, these neurons linked together like a
branching tree.
In the 1990s Director of the Harvard Bio-psychiatry Research Program in Belmont, Massachusetts Dr. Martin Teicher and a few years later, University of California at San Diego Professor Murray B. Stein, concluded that brain wavelengths tend to be abnormal in persons who come from a background of severe abuse. More recently Dr. Teicher stated that the more severe the abuse and the closer the relationship of the abuser, the greater the impact on the child’s hippocampus brain functioning.
Neuroscience tells us that neurons connect to each other through electrical synapses in the hippocampus. When a person, especially a child, is forced to undergo repetitive stressful situations they release certain hormones including adrenaline, which in turn stimulates hippocampus stem cell growth. Stimulation also causes a long-term enhancement (LTP) in signal transmission of electrical circuits between the neurons.
In other words, severe abuse has the ability to stimulate a young victim’s chemical
synapses between their developing neurons, can strengthen learning, help memory
retention, repress unwanted memory, separate the new neurons or develop multiple
personalities and thereby make the child ripe for Dissociation experiences.
It is hypothesized that such happened to Jenny Hill during her many traumatic childhood experiences. Her mind formed new alter personalities with each abusive situation. Maltreatment during these important formative years likely both separated and stimulated her reasoning, resulting in spontaneous development of complex memory capacities.
One theory of how Hill’s mind functioned during her abusive childhood was that certain alters of the three different families appeared to constantly share their caustic experiences. This repeated stimulation of her brain could have enlarged pathways to
enhanced cognizance or might have left her with a more comprehensive understanding of
the traumatic sphere around her so she could better acclimate to it.
Related Posts
