Body memory

The body memory is the sum of by perception , relationships incurred as well as social and cultural influences experience of the body . In doing so, impressions recorded via sensory organs are stored as implicit memory contents in conjunction with emotions and movement patterns. In the cultural sciences , body memory is seen as the counterpart to consciousness-bound memory content.

The terms body memory and kinesthetic memory are sometimes used instead of body memory . Muscle memory or muscular memory is often used in sports . In the therapeutic realm as well as in anthropology there is a related concept called embodiment .

Concept history

The following representations by Friedrich Nietzsche in his pamphlet on the genealogy of morals from 1887 are regarded as a forerunner of the concept of a body memory.

"" How does one make a memory of the human-animal? How do you impress something into this partly dull, partly clumsy momentary understanding, this bodily forgetfulness, in such a way that it remains present? ”... This age-old problem, as one can think, has not been solved with delicate answers and means; perhaps there is nothing more terrible and sinister about the whole prehistory of man than his m n e m o t e c h n i k. "One burns something in, so that it stays in the memory: only what doesn’t stop, w e h u t h u n, remains in the memory" - this is a main principle from the very oldest (unfortunately also the very longest) psychology on earth. One would like to say for oneself that wherever there is still solemnity, seriousness, mystery, dark colors in the life of man and people, something of the horror with which once was promised, pledged, praised everywhere on earth is still having an effect : the past, the longest, deepest, hardest past breathes on us and wells up in us when we get "serious". It never went without blood, torture, and sacrifice, when man felt it necessary to make a memory; the most gruesome sacrifices and pledges (where the firstfruits belong), the most disgusting mutilations (for example the castrations), the cruelest forms of ritual of all religious cults (and all religions are at the bottom of all systems of cruelty) - all that has its origin in that instinct who, in pain, guessed the most powerful tool of mnemonics. "

- Friedrich Nietzsche : On the genealogy of morals

Nietzsche's remarks on physical injuries and pain stand in this context as metaphors for strong emotions such as pleasure and displeasure that are associated with memory content.

Sigmund Freud reformulated Nietzsche's idea of ​​body memory as affect memory when he wrote about so-called “memory traces ” in the context of the defensive hysteria he postulated in 1894 , which are triggered by quantifiable affects and spread “like an electrical charge over the body”. In his later works he developed this thought further and came to the view “that all excitation processes in the other systems leave permanent traces as the basis of memory in them, that is, remnants of memory that have nothing to do with becoming conscious. They are often strongest and most durable when the process that left them never came to mind. "

At the same time, the term body memory was used sporadically in publications from the 1920s. In terms of content, what was used at that time was essentially the same as it is today. Since the 1980s, the term body memory has been used increasingly in various forms. Most of the different definitions and ascriptions of meanings have in common the attempt to overcome the dualism of body and mind or body and soul by imagining a combination of physical and emotional impressions in body memory.

Neuroscience

In the neurosciences , body memory is mainly considered in connection with the storage of movement sequences. Analogous to the construction of a memory structure for orientation in the environment , the human body constructs a three-dimensional memory of perceptions from interoceptive and haptic sensory perceptions, which is built up by integrating and storing these body perceptions as body memory in the sense of a kinaesthetic memory. Movement sequences learned early on, such as cycling, swimming and playing the piano, are saved for a lifetime. In this way, dancers and athletes memorize many complicated sequences of movements. Experiences from the kinesthetic memory can often be reactivated unconsciously, solely through the context of the situation - in the case of dancers primarily through music.

Trauma therapy

In body-oriented trauma therapy , body memory is viewed as a storage location for traumatic experiences. The aim of the therapy is to address traumatic experiences on the physical level and to stimulate healing from there. In the process, memories should also be reached which are not accessible to consciousness. For example, the disturbances of the body image and / or the body scheme that occur in some patients should be addressed and transformed through new body memories - analogous to Freud also referred to as new traces .

In this context, it is sometimes claimed that the body memory is primarily "stored in nerve tracts, muscle structures, joints and organs" and can "be reactivated from there (somatic memory)", while it is only "managed" by the brain. This assumption does not coincide with scientific findings that locate the effects of traumatic experiences in the brain itself and prove changes in the genetic material on the functional level .

Cultural studies

In the cultural sciences, body memory is seen as a recording, remembering, performing agent and equally as a “physical and psychological expression of itself” - as a “body of memory”. Put simply, body memory contains memories that are tied to specific elements of the human body, in contrast to a purely spiritual anchoring of memory contents.

Since the cultural studies opened up in the humanities in the 1980s and with an anthropologically oriented cultural studies, historical and cultural patterns of body perception, body representation and their significance in various artistic contexts have increasingly come to the fore. The so-called "return of the body" is seen as a countermovement to the distancing and mechanization tendencies of modern media society. Seen in this way, the body becomes a symbol of cultural memory, as an “object and memory of historical inscriptions”.

Thus approaches for a humanistic description of the body memory were formulated, which found their way into the debates about cultural memory . Since then, body memory has been viewed as a cultural and cognitive storage medium, analogous to wax tablets , temples , libraries , books , palimpsest , tracks, writing , miracle blocks , etc. Contributions from various disciplines ( theater studies , art history , literary studies ) describe the body as a medium of storage and transformation cultural signs. From an anthropological perspective, reference is made to the connection between pain and memory using the example of initiation rites and scars . Neuroscientific studies prove the influence of relationship experiences on biological processes in the body, including changes in gene function .

Based on this, the body can be thought of as an archive in which traces of individual or collective memories are engraved. The experiences made shape the body, while the resulting body memory also determines future experiences.

literature

• Claudia Öhlschläger: body. In: C. Gudehus, A. Eichenberg, H. Welzer (eds.): Memory and memory. Chapter III: Media of Remembrance. JB Metzler , Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-476-02259-2 , doi: 10.1007 / 978-3-476-00344-7_28
• Sabine C. Koch, Tomas Fuchs, Michela Summa, Cornelia Müller: Body Memory, Metaphor and Movement. John Benjamin Publishing Company , Amsterdam (Netherlands) 2012, ISBN 978-9027213556 , doi: 10.1075 / aicr.84
• Andrea Bartl, Hans-Joachim Schott: Natural history, body memory: explorations of a cultural anthropological figure of thought. Königshausen & Neumann , Würzburg 2014, ISBN 978-3826051425

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Arnd Beise: 'body memory' as a cultural-scientific category. In: Bettina Bannasch, Günter Butzer: Exercise and Affect: Forms of Body Memory. De Gruyter , 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-019322-0 .
2. ↑ Sigmund Freud: Die Abwehr-Neuro-Psychosen: Attempt of a psychological theory of acquired hysteria, many phobias and obsessions and certain hallucinatory psychoses. In: Neurological Centralblatt . Volume 13, p. 402.
3. ↑ Sigmund Freud: Beyond the pleasure principle . International Psychoanalytical Publishing House, Leipzig / Vienna / Zurich 1920.
4. ^ Fritz Böhle: body memory beyond sensorimotor routine and only subjective importance. In: Michael Heinlein et al. (Ed.): The body as social memory. Springer VS , Wiesbaden 2016, ISBN 978-3-658-09743-1 , pp. 19-47. ( www.springer.com; PDF; 736 KB )
5. ↑ body memory. Werner Stangl, accessed on November 4, 2018 . 
6. ↑ Elke Weigel: Recognize and treat body schema disorders. Klett-Cotta Verlag , Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-608-89070-9 .
7. ↑ Joachim Bauer : The body's memory - How relationships and lifestyles control our genes. 7th edition. Piper Verlag , 2013, ISBN 978-3-492-30185-5 .
8. ↑ Therese Frey Steffen (Ed.): Figurations gender literature culture. 9th year 2008, issue 1 body memory // memory body , editorial
9. ^ Claudia Öhlschläger: Body. 2010.