My interpretation of the incomprehensible.

Janov's Reflections on the Human Condition

What I Don't Understand

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My comment:

My interpretation of the incomprehensible.

Lack of love activates us, which, ironically, by extension, may be an important reason why the Primal revolution, so far only marginally, has been able to change the prevailing psychotherapeutic paradigm. The cognitive treatment philosophy, focusing on quick fixes, apply repression and repressive drugs to eliminate the pain / symptoms of lack of love, and to activate us. This neurotic activity propelled by words, psycho pharmaceuticals and the brain's own internal production of painkillers is an important incentive of most of our human creativity, being the driving force and inspiration behind science, technology, art and many cultural expressions, etc..

The evolution has, by ingenious chemical and electrical communication within our triune brain, converted pain caused by lack of love, trauma, abuse and neglect to activate us so that we survive, and can contribute to the long term survival of the human species. The activity caused by lack of love often functions very well. Especially when the task we face and our ability are in harmony with each other. When tasks become overwhelming depression and anxiety easily arises becoming unbearable just as when we become restless and bored. Both when we get depressed / sick due to insufficiency or boredom, we often seek therapy help for our symptoms.

In many cases, we solve the above problems / symptoms with cognitive therapy. Even if this therapy is both insufficient, misdiagnosed and irresponsible, evolution has since immemorial time recognized the unlimited complexity and insufficiency of all human relationships and created means for activity propelled repression to mask unbearable pain.

The evolutionary activity creates for many people a state of positive euphoric “flow” that occurs when they during high-mindedness are engaged in creative activities. The flip side is that we over-tax our bodies through faster metabolism, more brain activity, faster heart rate and higher blood pressure and the hidden price we pay is a shortening of our potential life-span.

All shrinks are themselves, for better or worse, the products of the same evolutionary repression / activity pattern as their patients. What they cannot or don't want to change in themselves, they cannot help their patients with. Temporary, short-term improvements and, at best, a limited understanding of the roots of our illness symptoms are the material with which we, eventually, can stitch together a patchwork of our life with its ups and downs.

The safest therapy to revolutionize the future human conditions in harmony with evolution is to give all fetuses / babies all the unconditional love they need in their life before birth, during birth and during their earliest most sensitive years.

Jan Johnsson

The Revolutionary Function of the Primal Therapy.

The Revolutionary Function of the Primal Therapy.

Dr. Janov's Reflection about Reform and Revolution (The Difference between Reform and Revolution) inspires thoughts and comments. After 40 years of contact with the Primal Therapy, the mix / solution of own experiences gradually has precipitated crystals that I want to highlight and put in relief to your potential, Revolutionary 6-step recipe, which the current psychotherapy paradigm staunchly keeps at bay. I'm probably one of the patients who had the most advantages of the therapy that you introduced 47 years ago. Fortunate circumstances provided me with prerequisites both from mental, physiological, social and economic point of view, long-term, to adapt my life according to the structure of the 6 “It means...” to apply and be guided by your innovative theory of “Evolution in Reverse.”

During my extensive epileptic journey, the theory behind the Primal Therapy became a lifestyle that opened my eyes to the Evolutionary Stable Strategies that allow the human species to continue to survive, despite the fact that we as individuals only live during a (sometimes unnecessarily) limited time. Our emotional denial of death like our ambition of continued individual existence, probably, reflects the evolutionary stable strategies, which seek to prevent depression and anxiety.

To me, the revolutionary part of PT consists in revealing the cognitive “lies” in the evolution and accept / feel the pain propelled anxiety. It is not without concern that I see my own limitations but I'm now able, in any case, to avoid a false peace of mind with neurotic lies. The memories into how my epilepsy previously constantly reminded me of my birth trauma never gave me the opportunity, for a long time, to seal my leaky gates with repressions and a neurotic life pattern.

Your six “It means...” is a must. None of them can be eliminated. However, I would add an additional seventh "It means": "That the doctor and the patient must agree / be aware of that the right conditions for economic, social (family, close relationships, etc.) and regular monitoring exist.” The doctor who has a crucial responsibility, must have reasonable assurance that the conditions are met, so that the patient can meet the conditions to undergo PT and will not be left to drift  more vulnerable than he/she was when the treatment started, due to lack of resources.

The revolutionary PT model is extremely costly in comparison with the current treatment paradigm. Even now, the majority of traditional psychologists and psychiatrists turned the 50-minute treatments to prescription writing for 10-15 minutes. With your, justified, demands for “unlimited” duration for patients, costs rise dramatically to levels that only a wealthy few are able to pay for a limited time. In a time of exploding health care costs, the “market” is forced to prioritize the reform model. Your revolutionary PT model requires first a political revolution of a magnitude that, in any event, no American dare to consider.

PT was a potential revolution when it began 47 years ago. In PT's fight agains certain effects of evolution with its stable strategies for the human species' survival, PT best served as proof that evolution is functionally effective as a long term condition if we do not get our individual, unconditional need for love, touch and appreciation met.

To spread the word about the tremendous importance of parenting, childbirth and Life before Birth is now the most realistic and revolutionary task for PT. All based on the knowledge about the primal principles and “Evolution in Reverse”.

Jan Johnsson

It Is Easy To Criticize What Is Missing.

It Is Easy To Criticize What Is Missing.

During several articles, I have let out my disappointment that the Primal Therapy is too narrow and is lacking a holistic partner-ship. I have based my criticism in that PT is without modern management, is negligent to   Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and to the fact that it is very common that  patients, who are seeking therapeutic help, also are suffering a physiological imbalance.

I’m still convinced that a holistic partnership between the Primal Therapy, Rolfing, an individually tailored diet and physical exercises (enhancing breathing, endurance and circulation) in which patients are being offered a long-term career counselling, will be a necessity to break the monopoly of the psychiatric medications in the ongoing neurotic rat race.

However, based on my 40 year journey, with many highs and lows, to treat epilepsy / birth-trauma and neuroses, I have for a couple of years followed a case that has reinforced my views about the value of a holistic treatment. The last three weeks I have had the opportunity to evaluate my experiences and to my surprise, my conclusion is not, which could have been logical, more criticism to Janov, but rather the opposite.

It is easy to criticize shortcomings in PT because so many line up on the criticism of re-living repressed pain. But do we value PT as a still experimental treatment that works, against all odds, against the wind in a true neurotic society, then a different picture appears. “Evolution in Reverse” is a cure, which is naturally opposed to the repression of our mental and physical pain established by evolution in order for us to survive unbearable pain. As a consequence, Janov, The Special One, with his ambition to guide his patients to re-live repressed pain has not only his patients feelings to fight with. He has also the cognitive-dominated psycho-therapeutic paradigm and all educational institutions and their preferred literature to fight against.

Belive by all means not that I feel sorry for Art Janov in his seemingly futile efforts to get us to understand The Primal Principles / Evolution in Reverse. Part of his genius lies in that he does not give up facing the opposition from the present paradigm and the profit- and psychiatrist-propelled pharmaceutical industry. He has been captured by the famous Kantian image of the dove that is not hindered but, on the contrary, is carried by air resistance! He has a belief, call it courage, bordering on arrogance, to believe himself to be totally independent.

To write and disseminate messages about feelings and love, in a time of neurotic lifestyles, he would hardly have embarked on if he did not believe to be master of himself. He has also been favored by the circumstances, during 47 years since he made the discovery that clearly stabilized his telomeres so that in an advanced age he is still fit in his Reflections and messages. No external constraints have forced Art to change his direction. He has been doing his experiences, expressed his thoughts and been able to devote all his time to it. Much of existence setbacks have been obscured by his good luck.

It is Wiser To Gratefully Appraise What Is Available.

Jan Johnsson

To Open Pandoras Box And To Free The Hope.

To Open Pandoras Box And To Free The Hope.

As an apology and explanation why, during 47, years, it has proven more difficult than expected to cure massive early traumas, Art Janov says: “We never put in the pain, someone else did. As Primal Therapists we are charged with taking it out.” 

Then a logic question must be: Is it correct to charge your patients when you cannot take out what you promised to take out?

Primal Therapy (PT) often peels off layer after layer of repressed protections and filters, often without, successfully, being able to peel off / re-live considerable, unknown parts of the traumatic pain. PT opens the Pandoras Box and eliminates an important part of the, often leaking, protection which evolution created. PT is making the patients aware of their, often, unbearable pain, however, it has neither cured them nor fulfilled the hope and confidence that the patients dearly had put in the therapists hands, when they let them open their Pandoras Box!

In too many cases, The Primal Therapy has been a painkiller, a hope. Like drugs, cigarettes, sugar, sex and other neurotic behavior, PT has helped the patients act out their hope. Simultaneously they realize that they are over-taxing their minds and organisms, which abuse eventually is bound to take its toll. When a certain treatment time, short or long and often misjudged, has expired, and resources are becoming scarcer, the patients are often caught in no man’s land in a situation where no advice is offered and where money, family, work, anxiety, depressions and neurotic behaviours etc., in a complex mixture, are inhibiting factors. The practical solution often leads to the traditional psycho-pharmaceutical rat race.

Too many of the patients have been blind for the risks. However, propelled by their pain, the dream of the final cure became neurotic and worked in the same way as a religious obsession. That’s why I once used the aphorism that Art Janov is the, psychotherapeutic, one-eyed King in the Kingdom of the blind!

The Primal Therapy with its psychotherapeutic approach has a tendency, contrary to its origin, to lean to the intellectual branches of Neuroscience which is more and more dominated by the pharmaceutical industry. If that could be changed, Rolfing, as a natural therapy developing physical balance guided by the principle that the body has to be in balance with gravity, could form a natural partnership with the Primal Therapy. 

Primal Therapy (the Primal Principles) could explain and bring a new level to many of the amazing psychological changes that appear, often unexpectedly, in Rolfed individuals. For that to happen an intellectual iron curtain, that prevents free exchange of ideas, must be teared down. As in politics a new generation of leaders, dominated by a new set of habits and unconscious pain, is necessary.

“Hope is the last thing to die.”

Jan Johnsson

What They Don't Tell You When You Go Through Primal Therapy!

WHAT THEY DON’T TELL YOU WHEN YOU GO THROUGH PRIMAL THERAPY!

Could you please tell us how you did? That it is a recurring request I got. However, I have been too focused on my own way, to follow the Primal Principle (Evolution in Reverse), to learn or pay attention to how others have behaved and succeeded. Now, finally, I feel good and have started thinking creatively, extrovert about my transformation and I can analyze how the “official” PT applied to my practical reality. After activating my memories from those I met during my 35 year epileptic journey, and after having been in contact with some who have been patients in recent years, I realize that far too few have been successfully cured in the Primal Therapy, in which they have invested time and huge money and to which they have devoted their lives. Why?

Through my own experience (indirectly supported by a résumé of Art Janov from 47 years of therapeutic experience*), I have realized that it takes so much more to apply a principle on a complex human living situation than what PT, up till now, has offered and realized. I know that my stigma, my main symptom, epilepsy did not belong to the most common in the Primal Therapy, but, my birth trauma, its repression / imprint and subsequent development to anxiety, neuroses, depressions and physical problems of various kinds can be included as classic examples among those whom Art Janov describes in his brilliant descriptions from clinical experiences of how repressed pain distorts our lives.

My way over the course of 40 years to get through PT meant to change my life in many crucial respects. That way I achieved the social and psychological independence needed to get back the real me and to optimize the result of re-lived repressed pain from my birth trauma. This is mentioned rarely or never in the “marketing” of the Primal Therapy. If I try to describe my holistic way, I get either censored by Art Janov or discredited, especially by potential patients, who intellectually “know” all the information about the pain they have not yet experienced more than the symptoms of.

My intention is, in a series of articles, to summarize my experiences and to point out what, I think, should be the obligation of those responsible for the Primal Therapy to inform their patients about, before, during and possibly after the treatment has ended. I have nothing sensational to reveal. My experiences may, however, change the image of to whom PT may be a solution in an unsustainable situation. In stead of originally being an unrealistic quick fix for everyone, it may be a very realistic therapy for many patients, which, as part of the customer recruitment / therapy, have to be identified in order to establish their treatment horizon and potential to be successfully cured.

Jan Johnsson

*

“I used to think it was an amazing discovery to cure people. But there is something that is hard to explain: the amount of unconscious pain we all carry within ourselves. The pain we consciously feel may not feel like it requires 40 years of therapy, but that is because we don't feel the unconscious part that is much greater. And the more you feel in therapy, the deeper you go, the more you uncover the unconscious pain, the more you realize the intensity and amount of what you were carrying.

Therapy can only follow each individual natural rhythm and what their body can take out, one piece at a time. So, in fact, I don't want to sound pessimistic, but people with massive early trauma may not have enough of a life time to resolve it entirely, even with Primal Therapy. However it is still better to take it out, one piece at a time, and live a better life day after day. And I agree with you, healthy diet, exercise, all these other tools we can find can definitely help greatly too. 

As Primal therapists, we are charged with taking the pain out. We never put it in, someone else did.”  Art Janov.

It Takes More Than Excellent Therapists!

It takes more than Excellent Therapists!

A friend who, during years, has been through Primal Therapy (so far unsuccessfully) asked me to be aware of the fact that most of the people commenting on Art Janov’s Reflections have not been through the therapy. This explained to me why so many are almost religiously obsessed by following “the only right path” as they have entered a chosen sect.

“Everything that goes wrong is due to that the world is filled with non-feeling, left brain oriented politicians, an evil cognitive paradigm or by ego tripped psychopaths in general”. No debate to develop PT to a better therapy is permitted. It is a pure and simple recruitment of new patients. My comments / articles are often censored not published when I’m critical or bringing in subjects which infringe the marked primal territory.

To look inwards, critically, to examine how the therapy (and its patients), they so blindly believe in, has been administered, monitored, controlled or followed-up we have never heard or seen a glimpse of. No complete research has ever been made to find out of the real outcome (short and longterm) of the patients being treated by PT. This outcome should be compared to the amounts paid to the Primal Institute / Center plus expenses used for food and shelter.

People connected to Primal Therapy (including myself) often criticize the shortcomings of Cognitive Therapy. That is always done by pointing at the fact that PT (Evolution in Reverse) is curing by reliving the pain while CT is continuing the repressive process of evolution which can shorten our potential longevity. An extensive research to find out which method, measured in real cost per treated / functioning patient, would maybe explain why the cognitive paradigm is so deeply rooted in our society, education and literature. Why has not the theoretical (“left brain”) advantages of PT turned into an applied reality?

Art Janov has, during 47 years, experienced that PT has “evolved” / restricted from a dream of a quick fix of 4 months to a treatment which takes >40 years, maybe a lifetime. No doubt his discovery of Evolution in Reverse as a potential therapy was ingenious. It gave him and a few patients an amazing life. But, many were left, disappointed, along the road to their fate.

Jan Johnsson

It started with a desperate / urgent naivety.

It started with a desperate / urgent naivety*.

I, myself, like thousands of other patients had been in a desperate / urgent situation when we, tormented by anxiety disorders, neuroses and depressions, applied for Primal Therapy during the last 40 years. We (I supposed guided by our right brain) did it, more or less, only based on a unique story, “The Primal Scream”, of how Art Janov inspired by a famous destruction artist, made an ingenious discovery, how evolution, with the help of repression saves us from unbearable mental and/or physical pain. 

The “business idea” of The primal Therapy became to cure its patients of pain imprinted before, during and after birth due to neglect, abuse or unmet basic human love, when they got old enough to handle / endure the once unbearable pain.

I have been a professional crisis and change expert (often guided by my left intellectual side of my brain) with versatile experience and training. I had spent 10-15 years of studies and practical application in different positions before I was good at what I did. Eventually, I had, according to employers and mentors, 20 good active years, when I was regarded  a reliable change expert.

During these years I would, professionally, never had considered bringing in an expert to any of my employers who could not, convincingly have proven:

Experience of patients, successfully being treated.

Having done interviews with or obtained references from patients.

Being convinced of the existence of a functioning organization with access to the expertise we considered needed.

A treatment / responsibility plan, including introduction, procedures and how and when the treatment / patient was followed up by the expert.

That the contract we signed was reasonable from the legal, financial and medical point of view and took into account how the potential conflicts / differences would be resolved.

So how can and will I now explain my (successful) Primal Therapy experiment? I saw it as a unique private project to attack my epileptic stigma, which so far only chemical lobotomy / Tegretol had been able to find a, what I considered, unsatisfactory solution for. During many years, which added up to decades, I noticed, within the Primal Institute / Center, the shortcomings in both success rates and organizational professionalism, but, I was not affected by the, in my eyes, irresponsible complacency. Work-wise successful, but, pain propelled and neurotic, I took a calculated risk and could with my background keep away from those I considered intellectually obsessed patient colleagues.

Suggestions, to establish a partnership with i.e. Rolfing, was by Art Janov met by an argument that avoiding this cooperation was a unique condition for the recovery process to take place in the brains own pace (which may last 40 years...). My own use of Rolfing and the guidance of Janov, in a successful combination, showed how hard it is for a genius to change his habits. Also, The Primal Therapy is subject to an evolutionary development. 

The Primal Principle and Rolfing, both have the ambition to uncover  repressed pain, which evolution introduced for our survival. I am fully convinced that a skilled Rolfer and Primal Therapist could work wonders in a partnership. If I had sufficient funds and resources, I would not hesitate to set up such a clinic.

Jan Johnsson

*naivety=credulousness, gullibility - tendency to believe too readily and therefore to be easily deceived.