Molar Memories: Case Study 1

Working with Molar Memories — Pamela Woodford

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Since first hearing about Joe Griffin's molar memories theory and how he used it to help clients, I have had numerous opportunities, through the course of my work, to apply his method of dissolving problem behaviours — with enormous success. I can confirm, as Joe explained to one reader of the Human Givens journal, that "Once we bring back the memory of the [inappropriate] pleasure or anger to consciousness and reframe it, symptoms however severe melt away" as this is indeed what I have found.

The first case I will describe is that of Will, an extremely aggressive
15-year-old who was always losing his temper and getting into fights.
He had an ASBO, was confined in a secure unit, and deemed such a danger to others that, when he was brought to see me for 'anger management', I was told a minder had to be outside my therapy room, for my protection. After working hard to build rapport with Will over a couple of sessions (I discovered the only interest and gift he had was as a rapper), I decided to see if I could get to the root of his uncontrollable anger. It seemed that, as the anger just spilled over without any obvious rhyme or reason, it might be part of a molar memory.

So I asked Will to get the feeling of anger (extremely easy for him to do) and then to close his eyes, stay with the feeling and see where it took him. After a few moments he recalled an occasion in his bedroom at home, when he was six or seven. His father came in, drunk, beat him up, snatched the precious book in which Will wrote all of his lyrics and tore up all the pages, calling his songs "rubbish".

"What did you do?" I asked Will. "Nothing. I was frightened of him. I felt completely helpless." By getting him to stay with the feeling of anger, however, he realised that he had not just felt helpless. He had felt fury with his father too, although he had not expressed it. By this time, he was deeply in trance. I encouraged him to say to his father now what he wished he had said then. With tears pouring down his face, Will said, "How could you have done that to me? I wanted you to be proud of me and what I was writing! I wanted you to say, 'What are you doing, son? Would you let me read it? Wow, that's really good! Why don’t you sing it to me?' Instead, you just rubbished everything I'd done, everything I am."

It seemed clear to me, then, that Will had felt utterly helpless in the face of authority (his father) and reacted against helplessness in his dealings with authority now — of which there were very many — with the anger he had not acted on then. (In his unconscious 'risk assessment', he would have realised that he wasn't helpless anymore; he was a big lad and could fight back.) Thus there was continual escalation of the problem, as more and more punitive authority figures became involved in his life.

The effect of this work with Will was amazing. He became so polite and respectful that he was quickly moved out of the secure unit into foster care, with older parents and a son his own age. (At our following session, I asked him to write a rap for me there and then, "if you are so good at it", and then said, "Can I read it? Hey, that's really good! Can I hear you sing it for me?" It meant a lot to him.)

On a different occasion, I worked with another out-of-control boy whose dad made him feel bad about himself because he didn't come up to his high-flying father's own standards. Again, this manifested in anger whenever he felt helpless or put down. Through the molar memory technique, we were able to access the root of the anger — originating when he was nine — and I got him to express (as if to his dad) the anger he had had towards him then. Afterwards, he actually said to me, excitedly, "I should have said all this to him then, shouldn't I? Then none of this angry explosive stuff would ever have happened!"

Like Joe, I have also used the method to work quickly with a girl with an eating disorder. Melanie is 19 and suffers from food restriction followed by bulimia. She is underweight. When I had her focus on her compulsion to eat, what came back to her was a memory of being just three or four years old, and her mother and aunt saying that her eyes were bigger than her belly and that she must not be allowed to eat so much. "I felt disgusted with myself and disgusted with them for telling me what to do," she told me. At the age of 10, she started developing pubic hair and found that disgusting. By 12 she was bulimic, feeling angry and disgusted at her own body.

If Melanie's compulsive eating derived from a molar memory, it would make sense that, when she felt disgusted with herself and her body, she would eat (and then vomit, as she didn't want to put on weight), because as an adult there was no one there to criticise or stop her — no risk. In the course of therapy I got her to tell her mother and aunt assertively, on that occasion she had described as a young child, that she was hungry and she wanted to eat. I also did a rewind on the puberty experience and reframed the disgust: "Your body is preparing to become a beautiful, sexy, curvy woman — not like those stringy catwalk models who are unhappy with their lives but in the way of creative artists who draw the beauty of curves in a woman. [Melanie loved art.] You are an artist. If given a straight piece of wood, what would you do? "Make curves!"

At the end of this work, Melanie announced, "I'd really like a ham sandwich now. I've not eaten bread for two years." Melanie started to eat normally after that. Putting the desire to eat back in context clearly took the compulsive element out of it.

I have now used this therapeutic approach on several occasions since learning it and have been amazed by how speedily unwanted behaviours have resolved.