MY WAY OF PRIMAL THERAPY

About some laws of nature: On the Difference Between Help and Cure
by Art Janov

MY WAY OF PRIMAL THERAPY

Last night, during a couple of hours, I had a conversation with two Swedish friends. This led to a long dream during the latter part of the night. The dream did not give me, during its initial part, the same freedom and pleasure that my calls via Skype had made me feel, they were sensationally relaxing. My relaxation was apparently greater than I was aware of when I went to bed.

The dreams basic theme was that I had gotten a new job which meant access to a yellow company bicycle. At a very early stage, I was stopped and arrested by the police, and I was told that I was not at liberty until I had paid a compulsory license plus a fine. My irritation and excitement were immediate and increased progressively, and I spoke ironically and freely from the heart to all those police officers and officials who were in excessive numbers at the large police station. I refused to pay and also pointed out that I had no money. The latter was a lie and I either swallowed, during feelings of being choked, my money or put them in my shoes. The currency (euro) was not in harmony with the time of my dream; they should have been Swedish crowns since I was young, maybe 20 years old in the dream. I had vague memories of feelings that were related to the job and the boss I had, when I was between 17 and 21 years of age.

After being circulated among officials in the overcrowded police house, I decided after a while to change my aggressive resistance to the unreasonable demands for payment of a license fee and fine. I calmed down and decided that, under the protection of the vast human throng at the station, sneak out and escape the field. Nobody had seen my identity documents and could not find me again if I came out of my locked position.

To my amazement, with simple maneuvers and tricks, I could just slip out and I immediately felt a great relief. Just as I experienced the feeling of relief I woke up and found hat my head felt like it had been stuck and had been squeezed from all sides, exactly like during my birth process. Shortly after I woke up, the memory of three events gradually came up in my mind. They were all about fines, forced payments, and that I seemed to experience authoritarian behavior by police officers. These events took place between 1956 and 1995. 

The most-recent event, I remembered first. My daughter, my wife and I were driving in a French-registered company car, from Metz in France to Spain, when the French gendarmerie stopped me for speeding (150 km/h) and required reasonable fines (500 FFR), which would be paid in cash on the spot. My reaction, however, was not reasonable. On the contrary, it was explosive and it’s a miracle that I was not arrested for the contempt I showed the officers and I lied when I said that I had no money to pay with. I was emotionally, at the sight of police officers, who stopped me and by their demands for immediate payment, moved back in time to my life-threatening birth. However, with police familiar with French temperament and a smooth conduct of my wife we could pay with credit card, and I came out of my dramatic 1st line feeling and could continue the journey.

The other police-related memory that ran up occurred when I and GL, my wife, in 1979 was en route from Fort Collins to Boulder, Colorado. We drove our little European Ford Fiesta, which our American friends thought looked and sounded like a sewing machine.Two big police cars with sirens and lights turned approached from behind and my wife, who fortunately was driving, slowed down the speed to let the police cars pass. Only one of the police cars passed by and drove narrowly, and recklessly in front of us while the other lay close behind us. It was apparently us that they were after. They claimed that we had run too fast, and we were forced out of the car with our legs spread apart, hands on the car roof and our backs against the police while they searched us. With the sheriffs’ drawn guns, there was no room for unpleasant reactions on my part. Then we had to run after a police car to the nearest post office and pay the modest fine of 25. $. The economical impact was easily digestible. But I have never really been able to get over the mental rape that my first and only meeting with the American justice system meant.

The first trauma of police officers in a traffic context occurred when I was 16 years. I biked recklessly on the wrong side of the road and distracted an elderly lady who rode over and hit herself so seriously that she must be transported to a hospital. The accident happened just opposite Åkarps police station and within a few minutes, the police officer came on the street. I was questioned and registered, which forced me to, a few weeks later, meeting up in the district court in Dalby, where I could present myself as a summer practicing metalworker, to receive my judgment of 15-day fines of SEK 5, which I saw as reasonable. My anxiety that the elderly lady would be seriously damaged, and demand compensation, had been great. Fortunately, the woman recovered, and I was left off with a relatively mild shock and with an unprocessed memory of the event.

After the previous night’s dreams, and after the three police confrontations had spilled out of my memory, I went and worked out, and I felt strong and in good balance, almost euphoric. Then something happened in my brain and body. A deep sense of hallucinatory relief followed by a baby crying that pushed up from the depths where it had been trapped for more than seven decades.

Jan Johnsson