Imprints

An imprint is a memory of a significant event in which a belief (or cluster of beliefs) was formed.

The idea of imprinting comes from Konrad Lorenz, who studied the behavior of ducklings when they hatched, and found that once hatched the first obstacle that moved would be imprinted as their mother.

Timothy Leary later studied the imprint phenomenon in human beings. Leary also identified several significant developmental critical periods in human beings. Imprints established during these periods formed core beliefs that shape the personality and intelligence of the individual. The primary critical periods involved the establishment of imprints determining beliefs about biological survival, emotional establishments and well-being, intellectual dexterity, social role, aesthetic appreciation, and ‘meta cognition’, or the awareness of one’s own though processes. Thus, health problems might stem back to core beliefs and supporting behaviors established during the critical biological survival period, while phobias could have their roots in the emotional well-being period. Learning handicaps might derive from imprints formed during the critical period involving intellectual dexterity, and so on.

An imprint is not necessarily logical, but intuitive, and it typically happens at critical developmental periods.
As children we don’t really have a sense of self-identity, so we take on role models. Due to the ongoing intense relationship with our parents, we will imprint some of their beliefs and behaviors, eventually making their beliefs our own. Our own personal models of being an adult, are therefore incorporations of the features of past significant others, including manners of believing, and behaving.

Since an imprint experience generally involves the unconscious role modeling of a significant other, we can use what is termed the Re-Imprinting Process to provide new choices in the way we think about an old imprinted experience. These new choices can assist in changing old beliefs made about oneself, the world, and one’s past role models.

The purpose of re-imprinting is to find the resources necessary to change the belief, and update the role-models that were formed in order to have more choices in one’s behavior.

It is important to remember at this point, that the belief of any significant other, is as important in the creation of one’s own belief(s) as are the person’s own experiences.

Just a little more info for those most interested;
When someone experiences extreme emotional physical stress it evokes a state which is indistinguishable from that of hypnosis. Likewise, the unconscious response to injury is similar to the effect of a strongly given post hypnotic suggestion. Unlike ordinary learning by repetition, this memory is a completed learned on initial impact.

When an injury or infection occurs during a time of extreme emotion (fear, guilt, anxiety, depression, etc.), a potential for a subsequent disability exists. In most hypnosis, NLP, and memory enhancement classes people are taught to make things memorable. How do we make them memorable, by bringing up emotions, mostly happy ones, because the intensity of what is being experienced provides big anchors for recall. The more often these good memories are recalled, the stronger they get if remembered during more good times. This is also how the NLP pattern of stacking anchors works. Unfortunately what happens all to often in life is the stacking of bad anchors. This type of stacking breakdowns on members of society is known as the "reflect sympathetic dystrophy syndrome". If there is any evil parasitic enemy to humanity this syndrome is it.

What I referred to as a strongly given post hypnotic suggestion, is a suggestion that feeds upon itself increasing its own power. For example if you think about the following phrase: "The more you think about dinner at that incredible restaurant, the more your mouth waters, and the more your mouth waters, the hungrier you get, and the hungrier you get, the more you think about that incredible restaurant."
Notice what tends to happen; this type of language creates a loop taking a person back into the original thought increasing its effect.

So the similarity between an unconscious response to injury and that of a strong post hypnotic suggestion could indicate that the two are one and the same, but with different names.

In 1873 Spalding observed chicks perform what he termed "single-shot type of learning", which was later termed imprinting by Loren. The observation made was that of baby chicks once hatched, latch onto whatever they see first, and believe it to be "mother", which is very useful. Similarly a dog could be playing happily in its yard when a postman arrives. The dog sees the uniformed postman hand master a letter. The letter turns out to be a nasty lawyer's bill upsetting master. The dog excited that master is out of the house runs over to play, but gets kicked by the angry master. After that every time the dog sees a postman, he attacks, trying to keep the postman away from master, so that master stays happy. It only took one shot at learning this for the dog and now the dog is imprinted for life with a thing for postmen. Oh, I almost forgot, the dog then warns all the other neighborhood dogs about postmen too.

Herbert Spiegel suggested that imprinting is comparable to a post hypnotic suggestion, and that it might be the basis of neurotic behavior. Spiegel states that with both imprinting and post hypnotic suggestions there is:
1. amnesia for the activating stimulus;
2. compulsion to reproduce the imprinted reaction;
3. rationalization for the evoked behavior.

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Dr. Frank Valente Ph.D.(c)
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© 2004, Dr. Frank Valente Ph.D.(c)

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