In our memory are such facts as: Albany is the capital of New York; Jefferson was the third president; summer follows spring; I attended Columbus School. These facts bring up no reaction in your body. They are known, as it were, from the neck up.

The cellular memory of facts and experiences, however, connects mind and body: My body recalls that showing my true feelings in childhood led to a put-down. A slammed door meant that Dad was home and drunk. The specific fact/event may be forgotten, but the bodily reaction remains: Any slamming noise may induce terror.

Deep in our psyche, time stands still. What happened in the past is still happening now. This is what Heidegger meant when he wrote: “The dreadful has already happened.” An early loss of someone we loved, for example, created a shocking thud in our psyche. It is still reverberating. It will show up in an irrational fear that if we really love someone or something very much, we will lose them.

Our experience of love has been indelibly stamped with the possibility of loss and abandonment. The irrational nature of this fear and its powerful bodily resonance is the........

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