Mysterious, sublime and surreal.

Mysterious, sublime and surreal.

To me the Primal Principle, at times, has been like a surreal resemblance of a dream I had 54 years ago; when I had developed epilepsy and “decided” to do my utmost to demystify it! Having spent some time, lately, criticising Art Janov for instinctively protecting his discovery and not allowing intrusions on his territory, I will once again give a very condensed version of “my way”.

1974 I met Svend Möller-Andersen a skilled management consultant of a rare kind. He knew, had met and plagiarized Rafael Ortiz in N.Y.. The same Ortiz, who’s experiments a few years earlier had caused Art’s discovery of the Primal Principle. Svend told me to read the Primal Scream, which I immediately did and got a new view of life and my Tegretol-lobotomized brain / epilepsy. Since my job was long-term planning and changing of companies, it was natural that I made “the demystification of my epilepsy” into a pervasive long-term project.

21 of Sept. 1977 I signed an agreement with Vivian Janov in Santa Monica to come to PT early in the spring of 1978. I began in March 1978 and stayed through December 1979 while living on Veteran Avenue in Beverly Hills. I did my tree intensive weeks, but little happened and the same can be said of the group-meetings, during which I had the opportunity to meet the charismatic Doctor Janov himself. 

I was only able to connect to feelings regarding my father and my tree years younger sister who had dethroned me. My epilepsy seemed far away kept at bay by Tegretol and the marvelous weather in California and its lovely beaches.  Add to that, that I brought a young beautiful wife with no interest in PT who studied art in Pasadena and Santa Barbara. 

A life without work, with daily walks and swims was unusual for me, so to support my work neuroses, a couple of days a week, I flew to Boulder / Denver, Colorado and did consulting for a biotech company.

November through December 1979, in Boulder, I had 10 Rolfing sessions (pressed into a very short period of treatment) of the old fashioned model, conducted with the therapist’s knees and elbows as working instruments during my painful moaning. 

Back to Swedish midwinter in January 1980, I experienced for the first time how a potential grand mal seizure developed into my first primal / re-living of my birth-trauma. This meant the turning point in my PT, and the Primal Principles stood shiningly clear for me. Even though, my epilepsy still scared me, it was an explanation of the WHY? my life had been distorted for 20 years. During the same month, I told my three siblings (after 20 years delay) that I had epilepsy. This plus additional head-on information to my mother caused her repressions to break open. She told me crying (which was a new experience to me) about how she, inspired by the Bible, had followed  the advice to “give birth with pain”, which caused a very traumatic birth process lasting more than two days.

From 1980 and over the next 16 years I made an excellent career, strengthened by my new attitude to my body and mind. However, dependent on Tegretol, I was able to develop a great deal of my potential. PT and the Primal Principles were always in the back of my mind and this career period coincided with the best I’ve experienced in the Primal Therapy, namely the international retreats. They were held in e.g. Switzerland, France, Denmark and Norway, where I had the privilege of personal help from Art Janov to re-live my birth-traumas. At the same time, he turned in my less neurotic psyche, from a guru on a pedestal into a sympathetic therapist.

In the mid 90ies, I had over-taxed my body / organs, and my mind and I decided to go “all in” to re-live my pain after having been categorized a “burn out”.  I added homeopathy and diet to the Primal Principle / Rolfing. I threw Tegretol away after 35  years of consumption, and I refused any kind of psychiatric medication. Slowly, over a few years, I succeeded in helping my less pain propelled brain to establish a new level of wellbeing. 

2009-2011 I wrote my story about my epileptic journey / Evolution in Reverse which put it all together and was of big importance for my mind with its high dependence of memories.

When I in the fall of 2011 contacted Eva, an old friend from my childhood and reestablished a 53 years old relationship I could feel how my brain responded both in its tree vertical levels and in its right-left / left-right connections putting many of the millions of neurons in the corpus callosum at work.

A 54 years old surrealistic dream has come true. I did it “may way” guided by the Primal Principle / Evolution in Reverse as a deterministic lead star. If Salvador Dalí had been a patient of PT he might have used one of his famous expressions to describe the Primal Principle: “The existence of reality is the most mysterious, most sublime and surreal to be given!”  

Jan Johnsson 

Marking Territory

Marking Territory 

In an article in my blog, “The Egg or the Chicken?”, in the second last paragraph, I was complaining (as usual) about why PT and Rolfing have not kept the same pace of development or been working together, having a common, curative ambition and potential. Hence I asked: “Could the reason be a domain limited genius?” A limited number of my few readers asked for an explanation / translation. And I was not surprised because when I wrote it, I didn’t have the feeling of being head-on. I should not have asked but stated: “Art Janov instinctively protects his ingenious discovery and allows no intrusion on his territory.” He is blind to the obvious advantages that other natural, curative, methods could bring to a partnership.

Animals in the wild, inventors of Apple-computers and of therapeutical principals are all a lot like Gold Rush miners - they lay claim to their territory. The Gold Rush was of such a magnitude that, after i.e. San Fransisco grew to a boomtown in the 1850ies the US claimed the territory and California became a state Sept. 9, 1850, after the Gold-rush had started under Mexican rules. It was the start of the American Dream, both literally and metaphorically.

Primal Therapy originated in a peculiar way from a New York artist. His experiment turned, later, in front of the eyes of Art Janov into a unique discovery of how evolution inside the different levels of the triune brain has the capacity to repress unbearable pain. This discovery became Art Janov’s private Gold Rush and over a number of decades he claimed his territory by writing excellent books and Reflections, building myths and pursuing those he defined as mock-therapists.

However, difficult to compare, more parallels between "The Gold Rush of Gold" and the “Gold Rush of Primal Therapy" can be made. In skilled PR hands, reality has, during the epoch of the real Gold Rush, changed from crime, prostitution, gambling and drugs to a neurotic myth about the land of dreams. 

In Primal Therapy reputation and public relationship first became greater than the extent of the therapy. This despite the fact that the number of Americans dependent on psychiatric medication have grown to a number that makes the Gold Rush appear an experiment by the destruction artist Raphael Ortiz. In stead of a curing therapy, tens of millions of Americans are now in the mercy of the pharmaceutical industry’s (experts in marking territory) patented, psychiatric protected long-term degenerative painkillers. 

Jan Johnsson

Mind, Soul, Spirit, Psyche and Self. And Breath.

Mind, Soul, Spirit, Psyche and Self. And Breath.

I have a number of times thought about the interpretation of the first five words in my heading. Depending on what I have been reading or writing I have sought to develop an understanding of what they are and their distinguishing properties. Most of the worlds dictionaries have an ambition to see them as synonyms, although, they also provide individual priorities for each of them, which of course, are coloured by the environment in which they are used; philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, religion etc., etc.

A few examples: 

The original of mind was the faculty of memory, not of thought in general. Hence: call to mind, come to mind, keep in mind, out of mind, to have mind of etc. “The generalization of mind includes all mental faculties, thought, volition/will, feeling and memory and was gradually developed over the 14th and 15th centuries.” (Questions are being raised whether mind also can be property of some types of man-made machines.)

“Spirit comes from Latin “spiritus” meaning breath.”

“Even soul with its Indo-European root means breath.”

“Psyche was Latinized to anima. Traditionally, anima could have been rendered in English as soul, but in modern usage the term psyche is preferable.”

“Freud and Jung both used the German word Seele which means both psyche and soul.”

It is an interesting fact, that during the time, I was tormented by my epileptic stigma and allowed the repressed emotions to ascend, I never thought of the variety of intellectual definitions and psychological jargon that surrounded me, in more or less qualified versions. I felt, then, instinctively that it was an escape from my goal to live my repressed pain. For me, the patient narratives in Arts books, with their direct pain-related language, is an important part of his ingenious explanation of Evolution in Reverse / the Primal Principles. Only later did Arts, more intellectual, links to the Neuroscientific knowledge, tempt me.

That the Neuroscientific knowledge is difficult to apply and locate in the Mind, Soul, Spirit, Psyche, Self and Breath, that is something I can live with. I feel though that with the help of the Primal Principle I have become a much more integrated soul.

Jan Johnsson

The Egg or the Chicken?

The Egg or the Chicken?

Does it really matter if the mind is the egg or the brain is the chicken, or vice versa?

Without knowing which, I have still been able to re-live most of my birth-feelings. I may never be perfect, but at times I feel stupendous, especially if I compare with the days when my pain / epilepsy was a constant threat of terror. Being rid of most of my pain and my thick layer of neurotic behavior (not to speak of my Tegretol) I have noticed that:

Things are less black and white, when, in fact, more possibilities exist!

All 89.500 federal and local US governments are not filled with voice-hungry and heartless politicians, far from!

A lot of my thinking is still egoistic!

Many friends, always, find a reason why they can receive black money, which they do not mention in their tax return. (If I had an opportunity I might have cheated like many small business-owners, be they plumbers or therapists)!

200.000 US shrinks, psychiatrists and therapists are not all as bad as my primal thinking will make them!

It is fascinating to understand how the human organism basically works. There are different ways to acquire knowledge; reading books, research-reports, making own experiences doing experiments and physical manipulations!

The Rolfers (offering a holistic system of soft tissue manipulation and movement education that organize(s) the whole body in gravity) has world wide progressed much more than the psychotherapy in which I believe! They have not followed each other. Could the reason be a domain limited genius?

The pharmaceutical industry is the very incarnation of capitalism, and a neurotic lifestyle. It has emerged because of our symptoms and it utilizes recklessly that we are not able to define our real needs.

Jan Johnsson

In and Out of My Mind

In and Out of My Mind

To understand The Primal Principal, The Triune Brain and Evolution in  Reverse have been irreplaceable basic facts. Along with other important factors in a holistic treatment program, they lifted my understanding and made me dare to undergo a revolutionary change in my life that The Primal Therapy has meant. It has been a 40-year process that changed my way of thinking, feeling and reacting. During the therapeutical process, the health status could, always, be measured against stable regularities, like the vital signs. My vital signs (pulse, blood pressure and  body temperature) have, over the years, changed for the better and are excellent. The improvements over the decades have been made spasmodically depending on the undeveloped PT treatment methodology, which at times gave the chance a too wide margin.

We belong to a psychotherapeutic world that are part of an increasingly technologically advanced Neuroscience, which academically has become departmentalised in some 20 new “galaxies” without strong coordination and few practical common applications. Therefore, a part of Art Janov’s important contributions has been to, with metaphysical methods, combine his clinical experiences with advances in Neuroscience and in a comprehensible way explain this to his patients / readers.

A few weeks ago I read Robert Whitaker’s book, “Anatomy of an Epidemic”, and I was fascinated by two interviews / stories about how two people were determined, as a last resort, to break out of a mad psychiatric medicine program that had accelerated to increasingly disastrous results, and destroyed the lives of the patients and their families. The stories surpassed my own terrible experiences when I took myself out of heavy epileptic medication 15 years ago.

What began as an intellectual reading experience on a sunny Saturday afternoon in the Spanish mountains, suddenly turned into an increasingly more emotionally dominated experience. I was numb, frozen, and I could feel that parts of my brain were struck dumb. After a while, I realized that I was going out of my mind. I was moved 15 years back in time to my then dramatic primals. In reality, this meant that I had moved almost 73 years back in time.

During tre days and nights I was lying in bed with high fever, faint hyperventilation, with the head clamped as in a vise (only interrupted by regular birth primals / birth pains). I was not awake but could not sleep. I was out of my mind. Just like 15 years ago I got shingles / chickenpox around my chest. During three days, my daughter gave me water, tea and broth, and after another couple of days the fever dropped, the primals ceased and my breathing became normal. I was back in my mind but mentally tired and with great need for sleep.

Seemingly a scaring story that I feel is a necessary re-living of repressed pain from my birth process. The deep physical, mental and emotional satisfaction I feel when the ink flow out of my pen is completely in harmony with my needs. Thanks to The Primal Principles and a sufficient understanding of the interactive communication within the Triune Brain, I have the tranquility that makes it possible to interpret an “old man’s” disease like an unborn fetus struggle for life.Thank you, Art Janov!!!

Jan Johnsson 

Ask Neuroscience what it can do for you!

ART JANOV: Having been, for 47 years, our extended arm of a coordinated Neuroscience; Do not ask what you can do for Neroscience, but ask Neuroscience what it can do for you!

The title is a parody and stylish imitation of JFK’s, one of the probably most painfilld presidents of modern times, presidential inaugural speech, January 20, 1961. Few statements have stayed longer in my mind. It was a skilful, tactical, statement of a bright, picturesque, intellectual, whose family and life have fascinated us during generations by reasons, often, being doubtful. 

Today “we” no longer speak of citizens, employees (workers and clerks), Human Resources (they are all “future antiques”) but a new approach is finding its way. The future generations will be asking to be given the opportunity to become PARTNERS in a new civic organism. While most of us are stuck in the “future antiques”, which we started to doubt, a host of American, Austrailian, and European free spirits are growing new successful socio-economic businesses (in both low and high tec), more adjusted to our mental and physical resources and less inhibitory.

I’m reading and being both mentally and physically horrified -  though at the same time helped to understand the primal principles -  by the findings of critical scientists about the extremely serious general situation in the mental health sector.  Although the general situation for middle-age and older patients is regrettable, the overwhelming discloser is that millions of young people are  casually being categorised according to APA’s DSM  (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual). 

A growing number of scientists in the ranks of the intellectually dominated Neuroscience do no longer cope to stand by and watch how our youngsters are going through a long-term treatmeant with a high risk of a longterm predictable distorted mind, and often worse. Even within the scientific galaxy’s often “water proof” ranks, there are obviously “leaky gates”. Those are the emotionally aware scientists who do not want, the often conditional, help  from the Pharmaceutical Industry, but backed by non-profit institutions bring their horrendous findings to those who want to find and read about them. They are out there!

"My fellow citizens of the world, ask what America will do for you, and what we together can do for the freedom of man"

Jan Johnsson

The Moment of Truth for The Primal Principal

The Moment of Truth for The Primal Principal

My comments to an acquaintance who wishes The Primal Therapy to be a fundamental right for all, not just a random fluke for the few. 

Hi,

Much of what has taken place in psychology and psychiatry during the last 60-70 years has, naturally, been an extended “trial and error” operation. From the introduction of chlorpromazine, as a quick fix and economic surrogate, for the masses, of Freud’s psychoanalysis, was discovered (by chance) after WWII, those responsible for mental treatment thought that they finally had a truly revolutionary medicine. Their, and their patients’s, joy was relatively short-lived because, after a few years, it was concluded that the side effects often were worse than the original symptoms. Today, we can, after a number of short-term successes, state that the field of antipsychotics and of psychotherapies, both have failed as a longterm cure. Although epigenetic research is making great progress, it is still a far step away to produce accurate “magic bullets” that combined with dynamic psychotherapy may increase the proportion of patients who are cured of neurotic anxiety disorders caused by repressed traumatic pain.

Since I got the opportunity, with a holistic support, go through the hell that my birth trauma meant, throwing addictive medicine away, and during a few years re-living epilepsy, pain and anxiety, I understand your anger that an effective and coordinated assistance isn’t available for everyone. But unfortunately, that’s how it looks. Neither the pharmaceutical industry nor the psychotherapy has found a formula for correcting the epidemic of the ravaging mental problems. The knowledge, the resources, and the organization of society are not developed to give a curative treatment adjusted to each person’s individual needs.

We were not given the right to choose our parents, but the same can our kids say. When do we start and where do we stop? In a democracy we, as adults, are the “society and its institutions”. No one can solve all the problems alone.  I doubt your ideas about using lawsuits to propel the solutions and resources, and it is nothing that I want, actively, to participate in. To, on a broad front, generally accuse institutions, which have been in good faith and who is stuck in an old outdated paradigm, will only lead to further complications and wasted resources.

Then it is better trying constructively to influence the person who has a brilliant idea, like the primal principle. Janov’s invention, on a number of occasions, has proven to contribute to that a patient has been cured. Janov, however, is a seasoned veteran and do not want to (or cannot), of unexplained causes, disclose why many people have failed in his primal treatment or explain the whole story why some patients succeeded.

A use of the primal principle ought to be a natural corrective element in a healthy lifestyle. This implies that we live for our children, care for them and ourselves without over-taxing our own body and mind or the resources of the environment. The epidemic in, for example, the mental health context is related to that we have lost the sensible judgement of what is reasonable from different standpoints like standard of living, lifestyles, nutrition and the care of our mental and physical resources.

Robert Whitaker, in his book “Anatomy of an Epidemic”, shows among other things, with research, investigations and patient interviews how temporary medical achievements after a few yeas began to create ominous information about serious side effects. This was controversial information because these medications, led by Chlorpromazine, had contributed (accelerated by financial government incentives) rather quickly to drain the old mental hospitals on patients.

After a number of decades, and a further number of famous short-term magical medicines, a general picture has emerged showing that the many addictive and degenerative sides of antipsychotic medicine have created a situation extremely hard to handle. During the same time, new patients from early school age, casually diagnosed according to modern psychiatric categorization (i.e. ADD), have been provided with life lasting medications that often cause severe disabling consequences.

In his interesting interviews Whitaker showing how a growing number of individuals, as a last desperate resort, taking themselves out of their addiction of antipsychotic medication. During painful mental and physical suffering they choose to return to their “old self” before neuroleptics were inserted. There are stories of processes similar to the experiences we know from Primal Therapy, however, without the patients having access to Art Janov’s ingenious insights into Evolution in Reverse.

With 60 million patients (only in the US) presently dependent on antipsychotic medication, the future ought to be bright for a revitalized Primal Therapy.

Jan Johnsson