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Published by Park Street Press
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Table of Contents
About The Book
• Explains how babies remember their experiences from the womb and birth as implicit memory, impressions that are held in emotions, images, and the body
• Examines scientific evidence of how preverbal memory works and how prenates are highly responsive to their mother’s perceptions
• Looks at how to become aware of and acknowledge implicit memory from the womb as well as how to heal and prevent birth trauma
In a world where it is believed that babies lack awareness, somatic pre- and perinatal therapist Cherionna Menzam-Sills, Ph.D., reveals that babies do perceive negative prenatal and birth experiences, which can easily become unconscious shadow, infiltrating the psyche and affecting personality, relationships, behavior, and perceptions throughout life.
Drawing on scientific evidence of how preverbal memory works, the author shows how babies, even before birth, are exquisitely sensitive with remarkable potential. She explains how babies remember the intensely formative experiences from this primal period as implicit memory, and she looks at how prenates are deeply influenced by their mother’s perception of safety or threat, including during labor and birth, which affects their developing nervous systems.
Examining the healing and integration of the prenatal shadow, the author presents body awareness exercises, reflection questions, and meditative practices for sensing the little one within and offering them what they need. She also shares stories about how clients were able to express their prenatal emotions, changing their lives with these techniques. By integrating the prenatal and perinatal shadow hidden just beyond conscious awareness, we can heal our relationships with ourselves and our loved ones as well as reconnect with our original potential.
• Examines scientific evidence of how preverbal memory works and how prenates are highly responsive to their mother’s perceptions
• Looks at how to become aware of and acknowledge implicit memory from the womb as well as how to heal and prevent birth trauma
In a world where it is believed that babies lack awareness, somatic pre- and perinatal therapist Cherionna Menzam-Sills, Ph.D., reveals that babies do perceive negative prenatal and birth experiences, which can easily become unconscious shadow, infiltrating the psyche and affecting personality, relationships, behavior, and perceptions throughout life.
Drawing on scientific evidence of how preverbal memory works, the author shows how babies, even before birth, are exquisitely sensitive with remarkable potential. She explains how babies remember the intensely formative experiences from this primal period as implicit memory, and she looks at how prenates are deeply influenced by their mother’s perception of safety or threat, including during labor and birth, which affects their developing nervous systems.
Examining the healing and integration of the prenatal shadow, the author presents body awareness exercises, reflection questions, and meditative practices for sensing the little one within and offering them what they need. She also shares stories about how clients were able to express their prenatal emotions, changing their lives with these techniques. By integrating the prenatal and perinatal shadow hidden just beyond conscious awareness, we can heal our relationships with ourselves and our loved ones as well as reconnect with our original potential.
Excerpt
INTRODUCTION
Emerging from the Shadow
What we have called " karma" or "shadow" may, today,
be called "trauma," since the effects of trauma propagate
as dissociated and denied energies, frozen in shadow,
bound to repeat. Trauma creates incoherence, fracturing us
from ourselves and separating us from others. Its broken
memories resurface repeatedly through exterior eruptions
that are not directed by free will but by that part of the self
that is held in darkness.
Thomas Hübl,
Healing Collective Trauma (2020)
SELF-KINDNESS ON YOUR JOURNEY
Before proceeding to discuss the profound effects of trauma at a very young age, I want to pause for a moment. This book introduces potentially challenging material. It could be activating because it may touch memories that have been held in shadow and not previously named or processed. I encourage you to take your time, pause as you need to be with your feelings and bodily reactions, and seek support to process what arises. I suggest reviewing the end of the introduction to this book, entitled, "Tips for the Journey," to support you in your reading.
Here, I want to appreciate that you may be a parent reading this.
You may find yourself feeling judged or criticized, which is not at all the purpose of the discussion. Or you may experience feelings of guilt or regret for what you now realize your child was exposed to and experienced in their earliest days. It has never occurred to me that prenatal or birth trauma is the fault of parents. If I blamed anyone, it would be doctors (particularly obstetricians), but I have always been more interested in acknowledging the cultural denial that underlies insensitive relations with babies. That is no individual’s fault. There is, however, culturally generated ignorance about how exquisitely sentient and intelligent little ones are, and how we can meet them with the respect and empathy they need and deserve. Please, please, don’t blame yourself for whatever may have happened in the past, and please consider that while repair is most effective early on, healing is possible at any stage of life.
I also apologize to any readers who may find my references to mother, her, and she as offensive. I acknowledge that this may not resonate for those who prefer terms such as "birthing person," "they," or "them," but I have not been able to find a way to use alternative language that communicates the content as clearly. I’m still learning! Please know that hereafter when I use such language, I am referring to the person in the mothering role. This caregiving position can and is intended to be inclusive of a variety of experiences.
MEETING THE SHADOW
Many years ago, I had a dream where I was being chased by monsters. I was running down a hallway and came to a locked door at the end. I could not escape. Suddenly, I remembered the common advice to face your monsters. Heartened, I turned around, where I beheld the three ferocious cartoon character-type monsters who had been chasing me. Holding out my hands, I dared to ask, "Do you want to dance?" Then monsters were delighted! We all joined hands and danced together.
The shadow, a term coined by Carl Jung, refers to unacceptable aspects of ourselves that we have pushed down into the unconscious mind. Although buried and out of our own sight, our shadow aspects never disappear. Like any rejected child, they long to be loved and welcomed. Inviting them to dance, as I did in my dream, enables them to come home. We return to wholeness.
Fortunately, at the time of this dream, I had already done a fair bit of therapeutic work on myself. I had some ability to face and welcome my monsters into the dance. As shadow expert Robert A. Johnson writes, "We are advised to love our enemies, but this is not possible when the inner enemy, our own shadow, is waiting to pounce and make the most of an incendiary situation. If we can learn to love the inner enemy, then there is a chance of loving—and redeeming— the outer one."1 The monsters in my dream represented my inner enemy, but they were often reflected in my outer life. I felt chased by the demands of a family and culture apparently requiring perfection. I often feared the criticism or judgments of others, and these three monsters represented angry, aggressive, and even violent aspects of myself that would have been dangerous for me to own or express as a child. My critical and mentally ill father was too unstable to tolerate anyone’s anger besides his own. I could easily point to this time as when my monsters went into hiding in the shadow.
Shadow work commonly addresses the roots of painful experiences within our childhood. As I immersed myself in learning about pre- and perinatal psychology in the 1990s, I began to understand that the origins of this trauma were even earlier than I realized. Prenatal refers to the time before birth, generally considered from conception to birth. Perinatal refers to around the time of birth (the prefix, peri means "around."), including the actual birth as well as the period just before it, usually involving labor, and the postpartum time that can be defined as hours, weeks, or even a year after birth. This field of study has been amassing evidence of our memory, learning, and intelligence from this very early time in our lives. As we sense and respond to the context in which we form the physical body, we are also forming the psyche.
As a little one in the womb, I marinated in the psychic field of my mother, who was stressed and often frozen in the presence of my father’s irrational outbursts. Prenates are intelligently preparing for the world their mother perceives. I was clearly entering a dangerous world where it was best to be a good, quiet, possibly frozen, child. Along with forming arms, legs, organs, brain, and muscles, I was also forming an unconscious home for my monsters. Later childhood experiences served to bolster, rather than to create, my shadowy patterns.
Personal shadow, which I have referred to here, differs for each individual and nests within a larger collective shadow. Though some aspects of collective shadow are universal, each culture strongly influences and expresses it differently, relating to their unique social mores. Pre- and perinatal experience, which profoundly affects our personality, relational tendencies, and other behaviors throughout life, is almost by definition shadow material, at least in the modern Western world. Cultural denial of early consciousness has only recently begun to shift in response to advances in research, development of more age-appropriate Research methods, and ample clinical evidence of the effectiveness of addressing this early time in therapy. As a result, attempts to express prenatal or birth memories are just beginning to be reinforced and integrated into consciousness. Within a field of denial, aspects of us associated with these memories tend to be judged, rejected, and relegated to the realm of shadow. Now, we can begin to meet and integrate them, returning to our original wholeness.
DENIAL, RESISTANCE, AND COLLECTIVE SHADOW
The purpose of shadow is to protect us. There can be fierce resistance to efforts to reveal these parts of us in hiding. New information tends to be met with emotional reactions, generated by defensive hormones as we sense our beliefs and as the identity founded on them is being threatened. Fueled by the stress hormone cortisol, we are likely to react emotionally, often with anger.
Within the field of psychology, Sigmund Freud and his student Otto Rank discussed the effects of birth experience, but these ideas were not popular and continue to be widely unknown a century later. Otto Rank’s The Trauma of Birth (1929) is a classic in the field of birth psychology, yet I recently spoke with a psychoanalytic therapist who was shocked to learn that Freud and Rank had met and acknowledged this material in their patients.
Collective shadow is responsible for this ignorance.
Several of Freud’s students, including Frank Lake, Otto Rank, J. Sadger, and Donald Winnicott, saw Freud as unknowingly being on the verge of perinatal work, and built upon his theories.2 Freud acknowledged birth as "the prototype" of anxiety in later life. He initially focused on the physiological trauma of loss of oxygen at birth, but later included the trauma of separation from the mother.3 He recognized birth symbolism in dreams and saw sleep as like being in the womb.
Freud, however, lived and worked in Victorian Vienna. So, when his patients revealed sexual abuse, he eventually renamed these memories as fantasies due to their unacceptable nature in Victorian society.4 If these memories were imagined, surely memories of even earlier, prenatal and birth experiences must also be fantasy.5 Otto Rank’s The Trauma of Birth (1929) was first published in German in 1924, and "initially celebrated by Freud as the greatest advance since the discovery of psychoanalysis,"6 but within the context of Victorian society, Freud then rejected this work by one of his favorite students, delaying its publication in English until five years later. The birth theory in the book was officially laid to rest.
Emerging from the Shadow
What we have called " karma" or "shadow" may, today,
be called "trauma," since the effects of trauma propagate
as dissociated and denied energies, frozen in shadow,
bound to repeat. Trauma creates incoherence, fracturing us
from ourselves and separating us from others. Its broken
memories resurface repeatedly through exterior eruptions
that are not directed by free will but by that part of the self
that is held in darkness.
Thomas Hübl,
Healing Collective Trauma (2020)
SELF-KINDNESS ON YOUR JOURNEY
Before proceeding to discuss the profound effects of trauma at a very young age, I want to pause for a moment. This book introduces potentially challenging material. It could be activating because it may touch memories that have been held in shadow and not previously named or processed. I encourage you to take your time, pause as you need to be with your feelings and bodily reactions, and seek support to process what arises. I suggest reviewing the end of the introduction to this book, entitled, "Tips for the Journey," to support you in your reading.
Here, I want to appreciate that you may be a parent reading this.
You may find yourself feeling judged or criticized, which is not at all the purpose of the discussion. Or you may experience feelings of guilt or regret for what you now realize your child was exposed to and experienced in their earliest days. It has never occurred to me that prenatal or birth trauma is the fault of parents. If I blamed anyone, it would be doctors (particularly obstetricians), but I have always been more interested in acknowledging the cultural denial that underlies insensitive relations with babies. That is no individual’s fault. There is, however, culturally generated ignorance about how exquisitely sentient and intelligent little ones are, and how we can meet them with the respect and empathy they need and deserve. Please, please, don’t blame yourself for whatever may have happened in the past, and please consider that while repair is most effective early on, healing is possible at any stage of life.
I also apologize to any readers who may find my references to mother, her, and she as offensive. I acknowledge that this may not resonate for those who prefer terms such as "birthing person," "they," or "them," but I have not been able to find a way to use alternative language that communicates the content as clearly. I’m still learning! Please know that hereafter when I use such language, I am referring to the person in the mothering role. This caregiving position can and is intended to be inclusive of a variety of experiences.
MEETING THE SHADOW
Many years ago, I had a dream where I was being chased by monsters. I was running down a hallway and came to a locked door at the end. I could not escape. Suddenly, I remembered the common advice to face your monsters. Heartened, I turned around, where I beheld the three ferocious cartoon character-type monsters who had been chasing me. Holding out my hands, I dared to ask, "Do you want to dance?" Then monsters were delighted! We all joined hands and danced together.
The shadow, a term coined by Carl Jung, refers to unacceptable aspects of ourselves that we have pushed down into the unconscious mind. Although buried and out of our own sight, our shadow aspects never disappear. Like any rejected child, they long to be loved and welcomed. Inviting them to dance, as I did in my dream, enables them to come home. We return to wholeness.
Fortunately, at the time of this dream, I had already done a fair bit of therapeutic work on myself. I had some ability to face and welcome my monsters into the dance. As shadow expert Robert A. Johnson writes, "We are advised to love our enemies, but this is not possible when the inner enemy, our own shadow, is waiting to pounce and make the most of an incendiary situation. If we can learn to love the inner enemy, then there is a chance of loving—and redeeming— the outer one."1 The monsters in my dream represented my inner enemy, but they were often reflected in my outer life. I felt chased by the demands of a family and culture apparently requiring perfection. I often feared the criticism or judgments of others, and these three monsters represented angry, aggressive, and even violent aspects of myself that would have been dangerous for me to own or express as a child. My critical and mentally ill father was too unstable to tolerate anyone’s anger besides his own. I could easily point to this time as when my monsters went into hiding in the shadow.
Shadow work commonly addresses the roots of painful experiences within our childhood. As I immersed myself in learning about pre- and perinatal psychology in the 1990s, I began to understand that the origins of this trauma were even earlier than I realized. Prenatal refers to the time before birth, generally considered from conception to birth. Perinatal refers to around the time of birth (the prefix, peri means "around."), including the actual birth as well as the period just before it, usually involving labor, and the postpartum time that can be defined as hours, weeks, or even a year after birth. This field of study has been amassing evidence of our memory, learning, and intelligence from this very early time in our lives. As we sense and respond to the context in which we form the physical body, we are also forming the psyche.
As a little one in the womb, I marinated in the psychic field of my mother, who was stressed and often frozen in the presence of my father’s irrational outbursts. Prenates are intelligently preparing for the world their mother perceives. I was clearly entering a dangerous world where it was best to be a good, quiet, possibly frozen, child. Along with forming arms, legs, organs, brain, and muscles, I was also forming an unconscious home for my monsters. Later childhood experiences served to bolster, rather than to create, my shadowy patterns.
Personal shadow, which I have referred to here, differs for each individual and nests within a larger collective shadow. Though some aspects of collective shadow are universal, each culture strongly influences and expresses it differently, relating to their unique social mores. Pre- and perinatal experience, which profoundly affects our personality, relational tendencies, and other behaviors throughout life, is almost by definition shadow material, at least in the modern Western world. Cultural denial of early consciousness has only recently begun to shift in response to advances in research, development of more age-appropriate Research methods, and ample clinical evidence of the effectiveness of addressing this early time in therapy. As a result, attempts to express prenatal or birth memories are just beginning to be reinforced and integrated into consciousness. Within a field of denial, aspects of us associated with these memories tend to be judged, rejected, and relegated to the realm of shadow. Now, we can begin to meet and integrate them, returning to our original wholeness.
DENIAL, RESISTANCE, AND COLLECTIVE SHADOW
The purpose of shadow is to protect us. There can be fierce resistance to efforts to reveal these parts of us in hiding. New information tends to be met with emotional reactions, generated by defensive hormones as we sense our beliefs and as the identity founded on them is being threatened. Fueled by the stress hormone cortisol, we are likely to react emotionally, often with anger.
Within the field of psychology, Sigmund Freud and his student Otto Rank discussed the effects of birth experience, but these ideas were not popular and continue to be widely unknown a century later. Otto Rank’s The Trauma of Birth (1929) is a classic in the field of birth psychology, yet I recently spoke with a psychoanalytic therapist who was shocked to learn that Freud and Rank had met and acknowledged this material in their patients.
Collective shadow is responsible for this ignorance.
Several of Freud’s students, including Frank Lake, Otto Rank, J. Sadger, and Donald Winnicott, saw Freud as unknowingly being on the verge of perinatal work, and built upon his theories.2 Freud acknowledged birth as "the prototype" of anxiety in later life. He initially focused on the physiological trauma of loss of oxygen at birth, but later included the trauma of separation from the mother.3 He recognized birth symbolism in dreams and saw sleep as like being in the womb.
Freud, however, lived and worked in Victorian Vienna. So, when his patients revealed sexual abuse, he eventually renamed these memories as fantasies due to their unacceptable nature in Victorian society.4 If these memories were imagined, surely memories of even earlier, prenatal and birth experiences must also be fantasy.5 Otto Rank’s The Trauma of Birth (1929) was first published in German in 1924, and "initially celebrated by Freud as the greatest advance since the discovery of psychoanalysis,"6 but within the context of Victorian society, Freud then rejected this work by one of his favorite students, delaying its publication in English until five years later. The birth theory in the book was officially laid to rest.
Product Details
- Publisher: Park Street Press (March 4, 2025)
- Length: 240 pages
- ISBN13: 9798888501153
Raves and Reviews
“Cherionna Menzam-Sills’s well-researched and thought-provoking book tells the story of prenatal and perinatal development from the perspective of how each event may contribute to shadow material and how the reader can benefit from shining light into these unlit places and move toward wholeness in mind and body.”
– Thomas R. Verny, M.D., author of The Embodied Mind and coauthor of The Secret Life of the Unborn Chi
“In this book, Cherionna gives a knowledgeable overview about the history, insights, and therapeutic application of prenatal psychology. Her book realizes a convincing connection between the Jungian concept of shadow with the observation and insights of the consequences of early traumatization before, during, and after birth. It brings insights that were not available in the time of Jung and opens up new insights of prenatal psychology to public awareness.”
– Ludwig Janus, M.D., psychoanalyst, researcher in prenatal psychology, and author of The Enduring Eff
“This is a monumental contribution to medicine, psychology, and counseling. Menzam-Sills brings to light a forgotten dimension of human development that holds the key to maximizing potential. This is not just the stunning insight of identifying the shadow components of prenatal and perinatal experience. It is the entire field of prenatal and perinatal psychology that is upgraded by her clear and straightforward writing. Such a revelatory awakening is profoundly needed now for people to actualize their power to act on behalf of future life and the Earth.”
– Stephanie Mines, Ph.D., author of The Secret of Resilience and founder of the TARA Approach
“In The Prenatal Shadow, Cherionna meticulously and compassionately peels back and sheds light on the many layers of the shadow that influence our earliest moments of life and then further influence us throughout our lives. No aspect of the prenatal shadow escapes her expert gaze as she expands our horizons and deepens our understanding of it, from the individual to the cultural and the collective. The Prenatal Shadow is a must-read for every therapist, parent, and educator.”
– Nir Esterman, therapist, teacher, and developer of Shadow Constellations
“Cherionna’s book is a well-researched antidote to the cultural blind spot of not recognizing the lifelong consequences of our birth and prenatal experience. One of the greatest wounds many of us carry is that we have to hold our birth and womb trauma on our own, usually without even knowing where the trauma came from. In shadow, these traumas have powerful influences on our behaviors and perceptions. This is knowledge that we need to disseminate if we are going to live as more conscious beings.”
– Matthew Appleton, cofounder of Conscious Embodiment Trainings and author of Transitions to Wholeness
“A thorough, gentle, necessary text about prenatal and perinatal somatics that presents the many difficult layers of experience for humans starting at preconception. She shines the light on elements often overlooked in modern maternity care and supports the reader with explanations and reflections about their prenatal and birth journey for their awareness and growth. The Prenatal Shadow is a welcome contribution to the field of birth psychology and a musthave for healing enthusiasts.”
– Kate White, M.A., founder and director of the Center for Prenatal and Perinatal Programs
“Cherionna tenderly holds us in a field of both shadow and light. Rooted in years of research, story, and observation, The Prenatal Shadow not only affirms our ability to feel into our innate wisdom and be met with awareness and compassion, but also deftly illuminates the profound harm caused by our entrenched cultural refusal to acknowledge that living organisms possess direct perception and conscious knowledge. This is an essential book for everyone.”
– Liz Koch, author of Stalking Wild Psoas
“An abundance of cutting-edge, proven knowledge—most of it little known and all of it important—whether you’re a health professional, therapist, educator, parent, or parent-to-be. This book is so rich, so helpful, and full of hope.”
– Suzanne Arms, founder of Birthing the Future and author of Immaculate Deception
“This complete guide makes prenatal psychology and emotional healing clear for anyone interested in understanding themselves, healing emotional trauma, and transforming limitations. An amazing contribution to planetary healing.”
– Julie Gerland, founder of Birthing The New Humanity and compiler of Womb To Thrive
“Cherionna has written a kind, personable, and knowledgeable book that brings together a great deal of information and references from leaders in the field. At the same time, she is able to reassure concerned parents and others and help them understand the importance of this knowledge and how to use it to benefit, teach, and heal.”
– Judyth O. Weaver, Ph.D., somatic and pre- and perinatal psychotherapist
Resources and Downloads
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- Book Cover Image (jpg): The Prenatal Shadow eBook 9798888501153
