The Art Of Connection

Janov's Reflections MONDAY, JULY 16, 2012  The Need for Connection

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My comments:

The Art Of Connection

Your Reflections on connection helped me discover how my life has been divided into four cycles that have lasted between 15 and 19 years (0 - 19, 20 - 39, 40 - 56 and 57 - present age), with different levels of awareness with or without connection.   My need for connections has during the last three cycles been strong, even though medication, neurosis, act outs, etc. kept me well disconnected especially during cycles two and three. My experiences already during cycle two confirmed that the perception of pain is a tandem work in which the left and right sides of the prefrontal area are involved.

Dr. David Ingvar, who was my neurologist during many years, ordered full chemical lobotomy (prescribing Tegretol/Carbamazepine) in the mid 60ies. He did that when I told him that Phenobarbital / Phenemal had limited capacity to prevent my gates to leak painful feelings and hallucinations when I apparently had my first connections to repressed feelings. Carbamazepine kept me next to unaware of my pain and thanks to Dr. Ingvar; I could make a reasonably successful career, creating resources for a different life in the future in which connections would play a growing importance.

0 - 19.

From my birth until I developed epilepsy at age 19. Both according to my own and to my friends’ memory, I was a happy and positive boy, always on the move. My secret sorrow / pain was my bad relation with my father with whom every acceptance was conditioned. This pain was only partly balanced by a stable and reliable relationship with my mother, who probably spoiled me more than I knew then. Between 10 and 19, I developed an accelerated disability to concentrate, and I could not use my talent but dropped out in high school. That I developed epilepsy seems in retrospect to be a logical fact.

20 - 39.

With anti epileptic medicine in modified dosis, I could suddenly concentrate, study, work and fulfill most of the steps in the Maslow pyramid! What medication could not prevent of connections, was taken care of by workaholism, moving around, changing jobs and families. This was made possible by a healthy living and rigid physical exercises. I did not make any connections, but, below the surface, “the secret underground messages” were activated with growing frequency. The pressure in my cooker was rising. I had no seizures during several years. However, I had a loss of sense of smell, allergies and short term depressions. Suicidal thoughts kept my search for remedies going. That way, I found Primal Therapy and my hope for a future connection was established.

40 - 56.

After two years in the US during 1978 and 1979 (with Primal Therapy and Rolfing) I had my first experiences in January 1980 of an epileptic seizure turning into a birth primal. The following years are filled of a balancing act between career and therapy (retreats) where I gradually with increasing courage and age eventually dared to dismantle my neurotic defenses and let the pain come up. That way, I could create the connection to earlier, never satisfied, needs and too painful neglects.

57 - present.

Finally, I decided to go full time into my epilepsy, quit medication, turn a seizure into a primal and to allow a connection between the right and the left prefrontal area. My life was at stake, and I must admit that I was prepared to risk my life to let the accumulated pain, slowly find its way out to make me feel connected. 

It is a double satisfaction both to be able to feel an “inter-hemispheric” connection and a connection to my life before being “chemically lobotomized” at age 19. The latter fact is an unexpected pleasure which has arrived as an extra gift for all these years of struggle in the shadow of a dominant cognitive world view with its split-brain effects.

Jan Johnsson