If you have to ask, you’ll never know. The Primal Mind.

by Bruce Wilson

I’ve often told Arthur Janov that primal therapy needs good evidence from well-designed outcome studies before the psychological community will accept it as a valid therapy. I tell him this is the only way his colleagues will come to believe that the therapy works. His response is usually something like, “they won’t believe it even if you prove it to them. With scientists, the distance from the left brain to the right cannot be crossed.”

In a way, he’s correct. To those of us who have allowed ourselves to let go and drop deeply into feelings without inhibition or control, the concept of “feeling” takes on a whole new meaning. From that point forward, the common notion of feeling held by most psychologists is revealed as a pale facsimile of the real thing. Rather, it is only the tip of the iceberg, the bare beginning of what’s needed to connect with our deepest selves and reclaim our birthright as fully feeling human beings. And as Janov repeatedly reminds us, this process must be done slowly and carefully, with a constant focus on insight and connection, otherwise we can get easily get lost in empty catharsis with few insights or bizarre ideation. Janov calls this “abreaction.”

To psychologists who haven’t gone deeply into their own feelings, this is terra incognita. Most consider deep feeling as dangerous – something to avoid lest it “retraumatize” the client. Even the most well-meaning of therapists who say their approach is “all about feelings” miss the point. The loss of control needed to descend to the level at which the trauma occurred cannot be avoided. Without it, you remain at a distance, apart from the trauma. You must go into the center of the pain to resolve it, and when done properly, the pain dissolves into feeling and the insights flow. Left brain and right brain connect to create a wholly functional, feeling being.

But in today’s trauma therapy, the client is usually led part-way into the pain whereupon the therapist intervenes with advice on how to “appraise” the feeling. The cognitive brain stays firmly in control while the feeling is observed from afar, as though on a stage. A variation of this is EMDR – eye movement desensitization therapy – where the client witnesses the trauma from afar, as though in hypnosis, and then talks about it. She remains detached from her pain because to go deeper into it risks retraumatization.

And herein lies the difficulty in encouraging the scientific community to consider primal therapy seriously: unless you’ve been there and dropped to that level yourself, the concept of primal feeling is foreign and usually confused with loud screaming, crying, venting, flailing or flopping about, or some other display of extreme emotion, but with no understanding of what is happening on the inside. More often than not, deep feeling is avoided because most if not all psychologists have some degree of past trauma they are defending against. They may have touched on it in talk therapy, cried about it even, but very few have let themselves go to the depths because after all, it is painful, and most talk therapy situations don’t allow full expression of feelings, lest it disturb their professional neighbours. Also, later trauma often connects to earlier trauma underneath, a phenomenon Janov refers to as the chain of pain. There is a general fear of losing control, despite the fact that primal therapy has mapped this territory well over its forty plus years of development.

This is why the science of primal therapy – the real science, that is, not the “science” that Janov writes about – must be done by researchers who have gone through the primal process, preferably all the way through therapist training. Otherwise, one there will always ask what is really meant by primal feelings and primal pain. And as Louis Armstrong said when someone asked what jazz was, “if you have to ask, you’ll never know.”

JanJohnsson’ comment:

Genovés 20ll-06-26

Bruce,

Thank You for another well written analytical article about Primal Therapy. It represents a viable complement to the messages coming from the inventor, our “unloved” guide, Art Janov. When you, in a very elegant way are letting Louis Armstrong "play the overture" of your reflections it provokes two different memory scenarios.

The first memory to ascend is one of a dear femal friend of mine, Grethe. She was an early Primal patient back in the 70ies and she was back in the 60ies married to Ben Webster when they lived in Copenhagen. One of their friends was Lous Armstrong, so Grethe, who was a jazz singer, had many opportunities to sing together with both Webster and Armstrong. At times, when I was sorry that I could not express myself in terms of jazz, Grethe said that it was more than OK if I could listen to it  and like it. She said she could do it but could not explain it. Unfortunately this lovely woman had early imprinted pain of a magnitud that her cells went crazy and she died from bonecancer in my arms the 18th of August 1982, while Etta Cameron sang gospels for us.

The other memory caused by “If you ask, you will never know” can be interpreted in different ways. Maybe you can help me? I have been connected to PT during almost 40 years. However, during all these years very, very few of those who know me and others have ever asked me about PT!!!  That this did not happen during a few decades, I can understand, while I kept it private due to my proffessional carrier as manager and consultant in different listed companies. However during the last 15 years it has been more official and especially during the last couple of years, when I have been publishing my “secrets” on my blogg. The only questions I’ve had are coming from Art and a couple of people like yourself.

The Google statistics are telling me that a flattering number of readers are aware of my existens. In my circle of contacts there are and has been quite a few psychologists, therapists and neurologists and according to Art’s and your opinion I interpret their silence as a defence against some degree of past trauma. However, for Hells sake they are proffessionals. In my opinion it should be part of their obligation to ask when they find a unique case. Maybe they are trapped by “if you have to ask, you will never know” or to quote another giant, Winston Churchill; “Do not reveal all your ignorance by unnecessary statements. It is better to shut up and let people maintain some degree of illusion about you.”

Probably their pain is covering up their real truth. Or worse, they do know but do not dare to.

Jan Johnsson


http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/05/brains-on-jazz-feel-the-music.html?ref=hp