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During a few years, I have let my feelings and experiences related to Evolution in Reverse be reflected in my blogs. Often, my inspirations are taken from Art Janov’s Reflections in combination with emotions - “down up” in the brain - that has been triggered by the current situation or of a dream. In addition, authors like Marcel Proust, Simone de Beauvoir, Alice Miller, Malcolm Gladwell, Georg Klein, etc. have stimulated my thoughts and feelings about what is happening in my body and brain.
Because I, in my career, worked as a leader and consultant in a number of commercial and industrial enterprises / groups and I had a special focus on crisis and changes, I have, out of curiosity, continued to deepen my knowledge in this area. Then I have obviously been heavily influenced by my experiences from the Primal Principle and the knowledge that Art Janov passed on, about psychotherapy, psychology and neurology, most of which he collected from his patients’ experiences and research reports in Neuroscience.
In recent months, I have thought about the similarities and differences in the success of the methods within my therapy treatment and my professional career. They are seemingly two separate worlds. However, it is, in both cases, fundamentally about people, relationships, trust, security, hormones, oxytocin, abilities, ambitions, shelter and food for the day. There ought thus be infinite connections / similarities between the practices which the business sector (CEOs, managers, change consultants, etc.) and the therapy institutes - like The Primal Center - (therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists, etc.) are using. Both worlds aim to solve / cure personal and / or organizational crises and create a safe, caring and trusting environment. This approach has been reinforced by my history, where I managed to combine a role as a successful CEO and change consultant while simultaneously successfully undergo psychotherapy and physiotherapy treatments. This took place over many years, and I was lucky enough to rid me both of my neuroses and my epileptic stigma.
Timidly, I have on a few occasions asked Art Janov to develop his therapy organization and his responsibility. That way, he might have succeeded to break the isolation and doubt which the therapeutic / educational / research authorities are having regarding the value of the Primal Therapy as a curative therapy. My, in vain, rendered comments have, as a start, dealt with questions about counseling, etc. and initiation of collaboration with other natural therapies. Later I suggested doing a consulting project on a voluntary basis in order to develop a more transparent and trust-based patient / therapist relationship, but, unfortunately, without success...
I have found it difficult to visualize and verbalize the introspective self-sufficiency of Janov’s Primal Therapy. This incapacity occurred despite the fact that I often as a manager / consultant, inspired by PT, had to resort / introduce unconventional methods that often focused on creating confidence when emotions, fears, old paradigms had created inhibitory deadlocks. I was intuitively better at practically dissolving a hormone-charged stalemate in a corporate organizational crisis and get groups of people to collaborate and get the oxytocin flowing than I was, intellectually, to understand inefficiencies in the development of PT as an internationally well-dispersed therapy.
Research in Neuroscience has, in recent years, accelerated extremely fast and with the help of modern resources and job aids (supercomputers, networks, MIR, etc. etc.) research reports have emerged which, according to Janov, show conclusive evidence for PT’s validity. I’ve found that skillful change / behavioral consultants have adopted the results of the aforementioned research in Neuroscience and have introduced change / development models that I had wished were available during my active years as a consultant / manager. Eg Dr. Judith E. Glaser wrote an excellent book on the subject called “Conversational Intelligence”. It is all about building a transparent emotional confidence according to a model that I have not previously experienced outside Dr. Janov’s Primal Principle.
When doctors, psychologist and scientists present a symptom, Dr. Janov is often irritated that they avoid to asking the question “WHY?”. However, Dr. Glaser asks in her organizational analyzes constantly “WHY?”!! It is the leitmotif of her change at all levels down to the individual’s emotional arguments and reactions. Dr. Glaser works primarily with organizations that for various reasons stopped working. Her approach is to, as far as possible, dissolve fears, neuroses, negative interpretations, etc. so that political and / or power-based groups, change their behavior and develop each other emotionally equally and become WE-oriented, but that they still retain and improve their I-worth.
An important part of Primal Therapy has been to guide patients to develop their ability to establish a healthy communication between the brain regions. The development, this communication, creates an intelligence where emotion and intellect gets a comparable status. For the few with unlimited time and unlimited resources, to re-live imprinted pain, presumably this evolution takes place according to the Primal Principle by itself. With Judith Glaser’s “Conversational Intelligence” a model has been developed that has high potential to bring individuals, groups and organizations much faster in this direction. Allow me, cautiously, to suggest even groups in The Primal Therapy in this potential. It is fascinating to follow Judith Glasers change journey through a number of identified and sophisticated organizations that have undergone severe crises. They have managed to escape from hormone-fueled horror scenarios and turn themselves into oxytocin flowing successes with motivated individuals who act on a new, previously unknown transparent level.
