The Prenatal Person: Frank Lake's Maternal-Fetal Distress Syndrome
by Stephen M. Maret, Ph.D.
Lanham, MD and Oxford, UK: University Press of America. 218 pages (1997).
Hard cover, extensive bibliography. ISBN=0761807683
Reviewed by Susana A. Hassan-Schwarz Galle, Ph.D., Washington D.C.

This provocative and intriguing book examines Frank Lake's Maternal-Fetal Distress Syndrome as a new and far-reaching paradigm in counseling. The main thesis is that a prenatal environment exists at the moment of conception, followed by a week of blissful "union" and nonattachment (the blastocystic stage), then implantation and gestation. The mother-baby bond evolves from conception onward. The first trimester of intrauterine life is the source of profound imprints affecting one through adult life.

Being a physician and an Anglican lay theologian, Lake's paradigm integrates major sources of knowledge about prenatal development, including physiology, psychology, and theology. He died in 1983 but left an indelible mark on his colleagues.

According to Lake, the bi-directional flow of "umbilical affect" between the mother and her unborn baby can result in three relationship patterns based on the mother's positive, negative, or strongly negative emotions. The mother's emotions inspire four variations of fetal response which range from the most "ideal" state of warm and connected happiness, to good enough "coping," "opposition," (aggressively active to passively non-cooperative), and "transmarginal stress" (a catastrophic state in which "the self turns against itself"). Here lie the roots of maternal-fetal distress syndrome, creating a psycho-physiological predisposition toward personality disorders or psychosomatic symptoms. These forces may also complicate pregnancy and giving birth.

Lake's Primal Integration Workshops included primal therapy, personal growth, prayer and healing. Over 500 persons attended these workshops at Lingdale (1975-1982), which sometimes lasted a whole week. In small groups and in dimly lit rooms, the participants relaxed and were instructed in deep breathing. They then curled up, and "re-created" the sequence of experiences from conception to six weeks, and to the first, second, and third trimesters of fetal life. This process included a reenactment of birth.

Maret shows how Lake created a psychotherapeutic model grounded in theology, drawing upon traditions from Catholicism to Classical Buddhism. He presents an excellent contemporary update of empirical research substantiating a psycho-socio-biological view of fetal behavior from the earliest phases of intrauterine life.