The psychotic individual often presents imagery, hallucinations, and behavior that reflect pre- and peri-natal stress. This paper is a phenomenological study of psychotic adults with a known history of pre- and peri-natal distress. An overall view of psychosis is described as well as the context of a therapeutic community system. The method of body therapy found to be effective with the psychotic individual is delineated and excerpts from actual interviews are included.

This paper extends the evolutionary-based arguments proposed in a previous paper (see McKenna 1987, Part I) but concentrates on why the sudden infant death syndrome is not found among other animal species, and cannot be experimentally replicated, and thus why it appears to be a species-specific, unique human infant malady.

Knowledge of the consciousness of the unborn child provides the unprecedented opportunity and responsibility to change the practice of obstetrics. Pregnancy and birth are primal experiences, but caregivers often forget this as they are caught up in the technological current of our contemporary obstetrical world. Fear has often replaced joyful expectation for mother, baby, and provider. Instinctual maternal behavior of comfort and care for the unborn child can be fostered. Maternal appreciation of and communication with the intelligent fetus can be encouraged from the first prenatal visit.

Although adoption is considered by many people to be the optimal solution to the problem of relinquished children, the growing number of adoptees searching for birth parents and the advent of pre- and peri-natal psychology suggest that it is not so simple a solution as had once been thought.