Primal Therapy is a trauma-based psychotherapy created by Arthur Janov, Ph.D. Psychological trauma is a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a traumatic event. ... Psychotherapy is an interpersonal, relational intervention used by trained psychotherapists to aid clients in problems of living. ... Dr. Arthur Janov is the inventor of Primal therapy and directs a Primal Center in Venice, California, USA. He is a licensed psychologist in that state. ... Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. ...

Janov claimed that in Primal Therapy, patients would find their real needs and feelings in the process of experiencing all their "Pain" (capitalized technical term of Primal Theory--see below).

One of the fundamental principles of Primal Therapy remains that therapeutic progress can only be made through direct emotional experience, which allows access to the source of psychological pain in the lower brain and nervous system. According to Primal Theory, psychological therapies which involve only talking about the problem (referred to as "Talking Therapies") are of limited effectiveness because the cortex, or higher reasoning area of the brain, has no ability to affect the real source of psychological pain in other areas of the brain. This is emphasised throughout the writings of Arthur Janov. For other uses, see Emotion (disambiguation). ... Italic text // ahh addiing sum spiice iin hurr`` For other uses, see Brain (disambiguation). ... The Human Nervous System The nervous system of a human coordinates the activity of the muscles, monitors the organs, constructs and also stops input from the senses, and initiates actions. ... Look up cortex in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

The absence of peer-reviewed outcome studies to substantiate these claims led to the therapy falling out of favor in academic and psychotherapeutic circles. As yet, there seems to be no evidence of other, completely independent psychologists replicating Dr Janov's claims. However, Dr. Janov and his associates have continued practicing the therapy and providing it at his Center[1] in Venice, California. Peer review (known as refereeing in some academic fields) is a process of subjecting an authors scholarly work or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the field. ... Venice Beach and Boardwalk Venice, California, is a district of the city of Los Angeles, California. ...

Primal Therapy received public attention after ex-Beatle John Lennon sought treatment from Arthur and Vivian Janov. His experience in therapy heavily influenced his 1970 John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band solo album. John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE (October 9, 1940 – December 8, 1980), (born John Winston Lennon, known as John Ono Lennon) was an iconic English 20th century rock and roll songwriter and singer, best known as the founding member of The Beatles. ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday. ... John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is John Lennons first official solo album, released in 1970 after having issued three experimental albums with Yoko Ono and Live Peace In Toronto 1969, a live performance in Toronto credited to The Plastic Ono Band. ...

Primal Theory

Needs

There are many basic needs, which have been catalogued in Janov's books. "Our first needs are solely physical ones for nourishment, safety and comfort. Later we have emotional needs for affection, understanding and respect for our feelings. Finally, intellectual needs to know and to understand emerge."^[1] When needs go unfilled for too long, Pain is the result.

Pain

In Primal Theory, "Pain" (capitalized to distinguish it from ordinary physical, emotional, or mental suffering) is unprocessed input of a highly painful, and therefore generally important, nature being stored by the nervous system for processing during a situation more conducive to learning. An event that creates Pain is by definition "traumatic" (automatically repressed as too threatening). Situations more conducive to learning may be removal from the immediate danger of the situation and/or adequate neural maturity (in the case of childhood trauma). For the mentally ill, the situation more conducive to learning has not yet arrived. Antonym of psychical. ... Mental can refer to: Mind. ... Suffering is any aversive (not necessarily unwanted) experience and the corresponding negative emotion. ... The Scream, the famous painting commonly thought of as depicting the experience of mental illness. ...

Arthur Janov has often written that his patients refer to Pain as the pain that doesn't hurt because, as soon as they go into it, it becomes simply feeling. Most of the suffering component is in the blockage or repression.

In later books, Janov drops much of the use of capital letters. Primal Pain may be referred to as simply pains or imprints. In the publishing industry, an imprint is a brand name under which a work is published. ...

Consciousness and repression

In Primal Theory, consciousness is not simply awareness but refers to a state of the entire organism including the brain in which there is "fluid access" between the constituents.^[2] Based on the work of a number of neuroscientists including Paul D. MacLean, three levels of consciousness are recognised in Primal Theory:^[1] Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and ones environment. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Constituent may mean; Constituent (linguistics) Constituent (politics) Category: ... Neuroscience is a field of study which deals with the structure, function, development, genetics, biochemistry, physiology, pharmacology and pathology of the nervous system. ... Paul D. MacLean (born in Phelps, New York on May 1, 1913) is the third of four sons of a Presbyterian minister. ...

In Primal Theory, the concept of repression is more complex than in earlier theories of psychological repression as it can occur on the physical, emotional, or intellectual levels of consciousness. Psychological repression, or simply repression, is the psychological act of excluding desires and impulses (wishes, fantasies or feelings) from ones consciousness and attempting to hold or subdue them in the subconscious. ... An intellectual is one who tries to use his or her intellect to work, study, reflect, speculate on, or ask and answer questions with regard to a variety of different ideas. ...

Defenses are the agents of repression and consume energy while protecting the system from the catastrophic Pain of unfulfilled need. When referring to Pain or defense the word "line" is used instead of "level"; e.g. first line Pain = body trauma, third line defense = intellectual defense.

Mental illness

In Primal Theory, mental illness is one illness with many different forms of expression. The mental illness of the psychopath, the neurotic and the psychotic in all cases has, at its root, pain that was too threatening to be felt - the pain of unfulfilled need. This Pain, as it is termed, is automatically repressed by the central nervous system but at the cost of disordering the interconnections of the mind, impairing consciousness so that the individual cannot access the original trauma. This allows survival but at a much reduced level of functioning and high levels of stress. Repression is never completely effective. Events in later life are always capable of reactivating the imprinted Pain resulting in symptoms such as anxiety, compulsions, outbursts of disproportionate emotion, depression, and so on. See Also: Antisocial Personality Disorder Theoretically, psychopathy is a three-faceted disorder involving interpersonal, affective and behavioral characteristics. ... A neurosis, in psychoanalytic theory, is an ineffectual coping strategy that Sigmund Freud suggested was caused by emotions from past experience overwhelming or interfering with present experience. ... Psychosis is a psychiatric classification for a mental state in which the perception of reality is distorted. ... Trauma can represent: Physical trauma, an often serious and body-altering physical injury, such as the removal of a limb. ...

The main determinate of whether a person becomes a psychotic or a psychopath rather than a neurotic is the "charge" or "valance" of the Pain. When Pain is extreme these extreme forms of illness can result.

Origins of neurosis

Primal Theory holds that most people suffer from some degree of neurosis. This begins very early in life (especially in the "critical period" - the gestation period plus the first three years)^[3] as a result of needs not being met. There may be one or more isolated traumatic events but more often it's a case of daily neglect or abuse that culminates, usually around the age of six, in a feeling that is conceptualized as not being loved or wanted. (This usually occurs around the age of six because it is at that time in the child's development that the nervous system is almost completely myelinated, at which point it becomes neurologically possible to conceptualize the Pain.) A six year old is still not emotionally or intellectually capable of accepting such an awful concept--not being loved by one's parents--it would be completely overwhelming. So the protective gating mechanisms of the central nervous system automatically repress the Pain. In modern psychology, the term neurosis, also known as psychoneurosis or neurotic disorder, is a general term that refers to any mental imbalance that causes distress, but (unlike a psychosis or personality disorder) does not prevent rational thought or an individuals ability to function in daily life. ... Myelin is an electrically insulating phospholipid layer that surrounds the axons of many neurons. ... The gate control theory of pain, put forward by Ronald Melzack and Patrick Wall in 1962 [1], and again in 1965 [2], is the idea that physical pain is not a direct result of activation of pain receptor neurons, but rather its perception is modulated by interaction between different neurons. ...

Neurosis may begin to develop at birth, or even before, with first line Pains, which then make the infant very irritable and difficult to care for. This can bring another round of trauma if the parents' patience is stretched beyond the limit ("compounding" the Pain).

Throughout childhood more elaborate defenses develop as the early unmet needs keep pressing for satisfaction in symbolic and therefore inevitably unsatisfying ways.

Primal Therapy

Techniques and abuses

Since his first book, Janov has often written about the abuses of therapists, whom he has referred to as "mock primal therapists" or simply "mock therapists" or "would-be practitioners".

A notorious case of therapy abuse occurred in the seventies at The Center for Feeling Therapy, founded by two defectors (former therapists who wrote a section on research in Janov's second book "The Anatomy of Mental Illness" page 198-210, 1971 ISBN 425-02494-6) from The Primal Institute together with seven other therapists. "Feeling Therapy" was given very favourable reviews by some (notably Carl Rogers^[4]). The center was organized as a commune, in which an abusive cult developed. The Center followed Janov's method of having the patient stay alone for three weeks in a motel. It was eventually shut down and the therapists banned from practicing in California as a result of lawsuits brought by the patients against the therapists, accusing them of rape and other forms of mistreatment. The victims and some observers of the case were dismayed that criminal charges were not brought against the therapists. Two of the nine therapists had been certified as primal therapists and two others had nearly completed their primal training (page 60 of Therapy Gone Mad, by Mithers). ^[5] Carl Ransom Rogers (January 8, 1902 – February 4, 1987) was an influential American psychologist, who, along with Abraham Maslow, was the founder of the humanist approach to psychology. ...

In 1992 in Chapter 17 of The New Primal Scream,^[1] Janov gave two reasons why he had written so little about techniques of Primal Therapy:

• Earlier descriptions of technique had been abused by the untrained, harming their patients.
• It takes years of training to be able to apply the complex methodology.

He went on to point out some of the mistakes that were being made by the would-be practitioners. From those comments and further reading of this book and his others, a general picture of the techniques and process of Primal Therapy can be formed. Specific examples are sometimes given but only the sketchiest of tips on how to recognise when to employ a specific technique. There was a little written about the techniques of Primal Therapy in the early books but many of the early techniques have been abandoned by the Janovs, particularly physical ones such as deep breathing.

The dangers of inexpert attempts to provide this therapy are clear enough in the case of abusive therapists but bad results can occur, according to Janov, when warm, well meaning therapists, lacking the empathy and technical knowledge necessary, resort to a mechanical application of isolated techniques and inevitably do the wrong thing quite often, in some cases even causing patients to become psychotic.^[1] Distinguish from Pity and Sympathy and Compassion. ...

What is curative, according to Janov, is feeling in context - this involves connecting to memory and to the present--not any particular form of expression of the feeling which the patient may choose. According to Arthur Janov,^[1]

"Primal Therapy is not just making people scream. It was the title of a book. It was never 'Primal Scream Therapy'. Those who read the book knew that the scream is what some people do when they hurt. Others simply sob or cry. It was the hurt we were after, not mechanical exercises such as pounding walls and yelling 'mama'."

Authentication

A case that is notable in connection with the issue of untrained therapists attempting to practice Primal Therapy is that of Alice Miller. This story shows how a well known psychologist and writer on child abuse was taken in and got some early results that inspired her to promote the therapist and the therapy in her early books only to be disappointed later and retract her endorsements in a web page entitled Communication to My Readers as well as printing retractions in her recent books. Alice Miller (born 1923) is a psychologist noted for her work on child abuse and its effects upon society as well as the lives of individuals. ...

Arthur Janov had been printing warnings for many years in all of his books, saying that people could check the credentials of a therapist, claiming to be a trained Primal Therapist, by contacting the Primal Institute or the Primal Foundation in Los Angeles. Since 1989, Arthur Janov with his present wife, France, has had his own center separate from the Primal Institute (still directed by his ex-wife Vivian Janov). So it might help to know where and when the therapist was trained. It is not a matter of public record how many therapists Arthur Janov may have trained in Paris in the 1980s when he had a clinic there or how many Janov-certified therapists are currently practicing. The only way to check, at present, on a specific therapist is by email to Arthur Janov at his website. Arthur Janov's center is the only place currently providing training in his methods. Flag Seal Nickname: City of Angels Location Location within Los Angeles County in the state of California Coordinates , Government State County California Los Angeles County Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) Geographical characteristics Area     City 1,290. ... 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article cites very few or no references or sources. ...

The directors of Vivian Janov's Primal Institute (founded by Arthur and Vivian Janov in 1969) were trained by Arthur Janov and have had well over twenty years of experience. For the Stargate SG-1 episode, see 1969 (Stargate SG-1). ...

The format of the therapy and process of healing

The overall strategy of Primal Therapy has hardly changed from the early days. The therapy begins with an intensive three weeks of fifteen open-ended sessions with one therapist. After this the patient can join large group meetings with other patients and therapists once or twice a week for as long as is needed. Private sessions are still available, though not every day. There is flexibility within this format to allow the therapy to be adapted to the individual's needs. The length of time needed in formal therapy varies from person to person.

The therapy is aimed at helping patients to "primal" (see below) and to reach a point where they can leave therapy and get on with life, feeling ("primalling") as and when necessary without the aid of a therapist.

The most complete information on the process of healing in Primal Therapy comes from Arthur Janov's books, which are quite long and detailed and give many case histories and brief reports from patients. The more recent books usually contain something new of significance as research is ongoing.

Connected feeling

A connected feeling, in Primal Theory, is a "conscious" experience which connects the present to the past and connects emotion to meaning. There may also be a connection to sensations in the case of a physically traumatic experience such as physical or sexual abuse or painful birth.

Primal

In early writings this was another capitalised concept. In keeping with modern trends lower case is used here.

As a noun or a verb, this word denotes the reliving of an early painful feeling. A complete primal has been found, according to Janov,^[2] to be marked by a "pre-primal" rise in vital signs such as pulse, core body temperature, and blood pressure leading up to the feeling experience and then a falling off of those vital signs to a more normal level than where they began. After the primal ("post-primal"), the patient is often flooded with insights.

Based on detailed studies, Janov and Holden^[2] claimed that the pre-primal rise in vital signs indicates the person's neurotic defenses are being stretched by the ascending Pain to the point of producing an "acute anxiety attack" (the conventional description), and the fall to more normal levels than pre-primal levels indicates a degree of resolution of the Pain.

A primal should not be confused with emotional catharsis or abreaction[2]--throughout his writing Janov makes this distinction. A primal may be referred to as a "connected feeling" but a complete connected feeling will usually take months or even years to feel, in many primals. Catharsis is the Greek Katharsis word meaning purification or cleansing derived from the ancient Greek gerund καθαίρειν transliterated as kathairein to purify, purge, and adjective katharos pure or clean (ancient and modern Greek: καθαρός). // The term in drama refers to a sudden emotional breakdown or climax that constitutes overwhelming feelings of great...

Reports on Primal Therapy

There have been several reports relating to Primal Therapy in books and peer-reviewed journals over the decades since Janov's first book on the subject. Much of the research cited in Janov's books in recent years is neurological research which he sees as supporting his theory.

However, it should not be forgotten that Primal Therapy is, first and foremost, an experiential psychotherapy. In Arthur Janov's words (remembering his technical use of the word feeling - see "connected feeling"):

"Although there are scientific references and citations throughout this work, we should not lose track of the overarching truth--feelings are their own validation. We can quote and cite all day long, but the truth ultimately lies in the experience of human beings. Their feelings explain so much that statistical evidence is irrelevant."^[3]

Tomas Videgård's The Success and Failure of Primal Therapy

In an early account of the results of primal therapy (published in book form, only in Sweden in English), Tomas Videgård^[6] reported on a study of a sample of 32 patients treated at The Primal Institute (Janov). Patients entered therapy from December 1975 to May 1976. 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ...

Outcome evaluation for the patients:

• 4 Very Good
• 9 Good
• 8 Medium
• 6 Bad (including one suicide)
• 5 Unavailable for post-testing

Patients who did not "finish" the therapy were excluded. Patients in the sample had been in therapy for between 15 and 32 months. Janov now claims that the formal therapy can take significantly longer than this, although initially he claimed that "by the time someone has reached his eigth month he is generally well" and "many people finish before the eight months" (page 101 and 102, The Primal Scream 1970, third printing, Delta/GP Putnam). Suicide (Latin sui caedere, to kill oneself) is the act of intentionally taking ones own life. ...

Videgård himself went through the therapy. It should also be noted that the evaluation was based on patients' answers to questions and some projective tests that require interpretation by the tester. Videgård concluded that therapy at the Primal Institute was marginally better than the Tavistock clinic and markedly better than the Menninger Foundation--the two psychotherapy clinics which he used for comparison. The Menninger Clinic was founded in 1925 in Topeka, Kansas, by Drs. ...

There is a paper by Stephen Khamsi Ph.D. about this study: The Success and Failure of Primal Therapy: A Critical Review.

Reports on Primal Therapy in peer-reviewed journals

• Janov's primal scream therapy, 1975. Article in German.
• Conventional and contemporary approaches to psychotherapy. Freud meets Skinner, Janov, and others, 1977.
• Primal therapy : yesterday and today, 1978. Article in French.
• Critique on primal therapy, 1979.
• Primal therapy--a clinically confirmed procedure?, 1982. Article in German.
• An outcome study of primal therapy, 1983.
• Wilhelm Reich--Arthur Janov--a comparison of their work, 1984.
• The derailment of behavior therapy: a tale of conceptual misdirection., 1989.
• Primal scream therapy: a new cause of Mallory-Weiss tear. 1990.[3]

Mallory-Weiss Syndrome refers to bleeding from tears in the mucosa at the junction of the stomach and esophagus, usually caused by severe retching, coughing, or vomiting. ...

Papers by Arthur Janov in peer-reviewed journals

• Towards a new consciousness,1977.

Books by Primal patients about their therapy

The following publications are not presented as authorities on Primal Therapy. These are accounts by patients of Primal Therapy as they experienced it. If these people are authorities on anything, they are authorities on themselves, with the help of Primal Therapy.

• Facing the Wolf: Inside the Process of Deep Feeling Therapy [4] by Theresa Sheppard Alexander (1997), Plume. ISBN 0452275210 ISBN 9780452275218.
• Healing Fits: The Cure of an Epileptic by Robert Reese (1988) Big Sky Press ISBN 0944-59200-7

Criticism

• Debunking Primal Therapy is a website set up by a former Primal Therapy participant, and addresses such issues as peer review, falsifiability, bias, justification and other social psychological effects behind primal therapy.
• Online compendium of brief Primal Criticisms
• An early 1975 criticism of Janov within the Primal framework: Beyond Janov [5], by Herman Weiner, Ph.D.
• Critical review of the 1996 Janov's book Why You Get Sick and How You Get Well: The Healing Power of Feelings
• Primal Therapy is one of the therapies listed in the 1996 book "Crazy Therapies" (ISBN 0787902780) ^[7][8]

Two years after writing his first book, Janov's certitude about having the one cure-all was established-at least in his mind. In the first lines of his second book, Janov wrote: "Primal Therapy purports to cure mental illness (psychophysical illness, to be exact). Moreover, it claims to be the only cure. By implication, this renders all other psychologic theories obsolete and invalid. It means that there can be only one valid approach to treating neuroses and psychosis". (Pages 121 and 122)

• Primal Therapy is cited in the 2002 paper Fringe Psychotherapies: The Public at Risk ^[9]

Rebirthing, Primal Scream Therapy, and Dianetics (Scientology) all assert that people can and should recall times in their lives when their brains and cognitive processes were too immature to lay down memories of the sort posited by these theorists (page 11)

Rebirthing is a branch of alternative medicine which postulates that human birth is a traumatic event (see birth trauma) and that a discipline consisting of a combination of connected breathing techniques, relaxation and focused awareness can have therapeutic benefits. ... Scientology is a system of beliefs and practices created by American pulp fiction[1][2] and science fiction [3] author L. Ron Hubbard in 1952 as a self-help philosophy. ...

Sidenote re John Lennon

The artist/ musicians John Lennon and Yoko Ono went through P rimal therapy in 1970, and shortly afterward Lennon produced his raw, emotional album, "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band". (Ono recorded a parallel album, "Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band" from her experiences. Both albums were released on the same day on the Apple Record Label.) Lennon's album featured a number of songs which were directly inspired by his experience in therapy, including "Remember," "Isolation," "I Found Out", "God," "Mother," "My Mummy's Dead," and "Working Class Hero." (For more on this subject, see the webpage, "John Lennon - Primal therapy,"which includes excerpts of interviews of John Lennon, Arthur Janov and Vivian Janov, along with an account of one of John's therapy sessions written by Pauline Lennon.) However John Lennon never completed the therapy and later referred to Dr Janov as 'the one-eyed witch-doctor leading the blind' (Walls and Bridges, 1974) John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE (October 9, 1940 – December 8, 1980), (born John Winston Lennon, known as John Ono Lennon) was an iconic English 20th century rock and roll songwriter and singer, best known as the founding member of The Beatles. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

See also

• Primal integration
• Attachment theory
• Pre- and perinatal psychology
• Scream therapy
• Pseudoscience

Primal Integration is a form of personal growth work first formulated by the Canadian Bill Swartly in the mid 1970s. ... Attachment theory is a psychological theory about the evolved adaptive tendency to maintain proximity to an attachment figure. ... Pre- and perinatal psychology is the study of the psychological implications of the earliest experiences of the individual, before (prenatal) and during (perinatal) childbirth. ... Primal therapy is a trauma-based psychotherapy developed and popularized by Arthur Janov, Ph. ... Phrenology is regarded today as a classic example of pseudoscience. ...

References

Books

Complete list of books by Arthur Janov Dr. Arthur Janov is the inventor of Primal therapy and directs a Primal Center in Venice, California, USA. He is a licensed psychologist in that state. ...

Therapy Gone Mad - Carol Lynn Mithers. (Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0 201 57071 8)

External links

• Dr. Arthur Janov's Primal Center home page
• The Primal Institute directed by Vivian Janov