Thanks To Janov's Imperfections.

The Primal Principle, Art Janov’s innovation, based on Evolution in Reverse, has had a profound, positive impact on both my mental and physical health. The way I understand, combine and communicate feelings, thoughts and reactions in my body and brain have changed. This change / improvement also applies retroactively. My experiences during childhood, adolescence and for much of my career now appears in a new light. Reality / causation that I previously, neurotically (hoping to survive), filtered off, often turn out to be, repressed, in my memory in a different version than the one I previously represented. There are long-term positive benefits that an unfiltered memory, of different relationships / processes, emerges in a more unvarnished version. A short term, somewhat painful disadvantage is that, under the guise of a mendacious version, there lurks an unpleasant memory propelled by a repressed trauma / pain. The re-living of the pain means that the downside is turned to relief and into a long-term advantage / cure.

During, the last few years, blog-writing, I have repeatedly been confronted with memories from my career as a manager, leader and change consultant, which washes over me and makes me aware of why and what caused both my failures as my successes. My new memory capability has given me new insight into all the management theory I consumed over the years and how I, sometimes, without understanding why, have applied recipes from different gurus. When I, with the insight of the Primal Principle and my own experience of work and therapy, re-read some of the established stars in the leadership-Hall-of-Fame, I understand them better while I understand my strong and weak historical actions. That some of these leadership theories in the past decade has been confirmed by research in neuroscience, reinforces the value of my experiences.

Probably, I have read most of what Art Janov, knowledgeable and pedagogically, has written and expressed in his books and Reflections while he guided me through, my epilepsy-causing, birth trauma. This almost 40-year process has made me virtually free from my original trauma, my neurotic filters and developed my ability simultaneously to combine thought and emotional functioning. My example, in turn, leads me to believe that the ability that Art Janov possess and has developed into “The Primal Principle” is an untapped, renewable natural method that could lift the existing  leadership practices in new ways that would benefit future generations. A broader understanding and use of The Primal Principle could create means that gradually develop help also for the weakest and most traumatized individuals affected by suffering.

As individuals, many organizations suffer, without ever knowing it, from repressed and unconscious pain. Suffering human beings, propelled by repressed early pain and / or traumas, develop depressions, high blood pressure, ulcers, heart diseases, strokes, etc.. Individual sufferers survive for a long time with the help of psychotropic drugs, cigarettes, alcohol and an assortment of painkillers of chemical origin as well as of religious or other convictions. Suffering organizations (companies, divisions, departments etc..) develop, for example, a top-down negative atmosphere, wrong products and markets, negative cashflow and unsatisfied customers. The companies’ suffering leads, further or later, to a negative / red bottom line when the change consultants / turn-around-therapists / “conversational intelligence’s” are connected. All mentioned sufferings, both individual and organizational, are about people and individuals. With wise leadership, knowledge, guidance, feelings and modern communication / conversation, both types of suffering could be reduced very significantly and free up people’s and organizations’ inherent natural, developmental needs.

Art Janov’s books and reflections are about what happens to us later in life if our parents are failing, and misbehave before, during and just after birth. Janov delivers and deepens two messages; A.: To become aware of our suffering and when our organism is strong enough, to feel and re-live the repressed pain (which is diffuse, without form, time or place and often without words), B.: To love, nurture, touch and be there for our children from the moment of conception. Janov is unwavering in his message. In vain, he has for decades sought recognition, for “Evolution in Reverse” / “The Primal Principle”, of the authorities / faculties  of Education, Neuro-science and Health Care. The decision makers (according to the evolutionary law of survival having over-developed intellectual brains) repressed Janov’s natural way to cure the pain. Dr. Art Janov has desperately been looking for perfection throughout his life. For me, he has achieved that, thanks to his imperfections.

If we combine Janov’s imperfection with Peter Drucker’s, Daniel Goleman’s, Judith Glaser’s and several others’ imperfections, and turn to ordinary people’s common sense, we would be able to reverse the tragically unhealthy development that in the U.S. alone, 60 million Americans are on psychotropic drugs. The pharmaceutical industry (since the 1950s and ‘60s, when the large mental hospitals were discontinued) have not managed to introduce any innovative curative medicine. The large pharmaceutical companies are, on the contrary, in the process of shutting down new development of psychotropic medicines. They are moving these resources into a new fashion area of stem cells to concentrate on research that may, possibly, bear fruit about 10 or so years.

Jan Johnsson