Free Of Charge

Free Of Charge / FOC. 

Recently, I rejected, in a blog, Dr. Janov’s proposal that all psychotherapy should be FOC / on the Health Care bill. I assumed that the Health Care is lacking instruments, of sufficient political and professional caliber, to distinguish between Primal Therapy and CBT.  Cognitive and similar therapies that Janov judges as “treatments of symptoms,” that is without curative long-term effects, will then also hit the taxpayers. Given the immense dominance of therapies addressing only symptoms, Janov’s well intentioned suggestions will, in my eyes, fall on its own exorbitance. We must resign ourselves to pay USD 150 per hour for PT.

Or is there after all a way FOC? In my dream last night, my triune brain and my body were active with deep birth primals. A re-lived suffocation trauma with cramps in the lungs, the bronchi and the jaws, was followed by staggering memories, how I, on and off, for almost 40 years, have lived through my birth trauma, almost FOC. Guided by Dr. Janov’s Primal Principles / Evolution in Reverse, and with the help of other natural therapies, I have managed to be cured, demystify my epilepsy and establish a new lifestyle. This has been done, if I stretch a tad on the concepts, almost Free of Charge.

With the help of a couple of resource-rich employers, I had the good fortune and skill to get my heavy therapy costs converted to development and miscellaneous expenses. Later on, long distance communication with Art Janov and literature of talented writers have supported my arduous journey into and through my birth trauma.

An unwavering confidence in Art and his Primal Principles (FOC) has been my compass that never let me down. The Primal Principles became the “enigma machine” by which I interpreted literature, physical activities (including Rolfing and Micro Movements), experiments with diets and medicines, and last but not least, an exciting and varied career. My jobs were, for several years, both successful and exhausting, but they kept me active and forced me to confront many of life’s challenging and painful aspects.

The literature I have read (almost FOC) consisted of Fjodor Dostoevsky, Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, Arthur Janov, Alice Miller, Simone de Beauvoir, Bengt Lidforss etc, etc. They all have, each in their way, given me impulses and stimuli, which I needed to see and understand the implications of how early traumas sometimes develop into refined, but usually degrading life-long neuroses and suffering.

The value of Art Janov’s charisma and his Primal Principles, that I describe, I try, on a daily basis, to put into practice in the contact I have with a handful of people who, as far as feasible, share my interpretation of Art’s Principles. Especially Eva, who I saw again after 53 years, and my daughter Isabel, after studying Janov, share my experiences and can adequately feel how their lives are heading towards a better mental and emotional balance / equilibrium. Free Of Charge / On The House.

Jan Johnsson