Evolution is Evolution and Psychotherapy is Psychotherapy

Oh, Evolution is Evolution and Psychotherapy is

Psychotherapy, and never the twain shall meet…

A couple of months ago I wrote a reflection on my blog “The Medium Is The Message / Massage” with the ambition to explore how and when PT /Evolution In Reverse can become a reality and when we can feel how we hurt and stop acting out. “Messages / ads seem to work on the very advanced principle that a small pellet or pattern in a noisy, redundant barrage of information will gradually assert itself. Messages / ads push the principle of noise all the way to the plateau of persuasion.”  Marshal McLuhan.

Over and over again, over 40 years, I’ve read Art Janov’s brilliant analysis of the routes of imprinted terror deep down in the brain and I’ve, after dedicating  > 10.000 hours of my life to the consequences of my birth trauma, finally established a zero tolerance to undefined symptoms. However, when it comes to those around me, I am forced to respect how Evolution manages to “make us do anything to deny and divert attention from the real problems… so that we never find out what the source is.”  The strategy of Evolution remains unchanged; to reduce / eliminate imprinted terror and crazy making reactions to achieve the overall goal; survival of the human species.  

Evolution has together with Psychotherapy at least one common function / role, which aims to eliminate repressed deeply imprinted pain / terror. The Evolution tries to embed deep instinctive pain reactions at the beginning of our lives. (That is, for example, what make those who become intellectuals flee to their heads). In general Psychotherapy (especially CBT), later in our lives, acts with limited sustainable success on symptoms (often guided by DSM-5) to hidden causes which the brain developed from the reptile stage, and all the way to the neo-cortex. 

In contrast to Psychotherapy, Evolution is not primarily for the individual, but for the human species. As a consequence of Evolution’s long-term strategic objective for man, it becomes an almost inhuman task even in Primal Therapy / “Evolution in Reverse” to succeed and take patients down to the brain-stem level. “We / Evolution do anything to deny and divert attention from the real problems. The system helps out because our biochemistry works on the gating system and tries to keep it closed so that we never find out what the source is.” 

Because I was an epileptic, I had, from a Primal Therapy - point of view, the “advantage” of having access to primitive terror reactions that no escapes to my head could avoid. Thanks to Big Pharma and their Tegretol (Carbamazepine), I could keep my primitive terror reactions (fits / seizures) at bay. The medication did not eliminate a pain propelled internal pressure and an abnormal energy that drove me through my repetitive pattern of marriages, my business career, language- and cultural changes and unique natural therapies. With Janov's Primal Principle / Evolution in Reverse as a basic philosophy, Rolfing, diet awareness and manipulation of my epilepsy medication (and not to forget; financial independence), I managed eventually to re-live / demystify my pain / terror from deep down. Dr. Janov's persuasions and theories have led to a breathtaking journey over four decades. My experiences have, in letters of fire, ruled that it's the journey that counts, not the destiny.

Without Art Janov's Primal Principles, guidance and inspiration, I had never dared or been able to find the source of my pain. Kindly note that Art never with a word has given me advice on how I should go about it in my therapy. On two different occasions, retreats in Paris, France and Bergen, Norway, he steered me wordlessly through long, wordless, birth primals that would otherwise have evolved into grand mal seizures.

Jan Johnsson

The Ballad of East and West

Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

when two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

Rudyard Kipling