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Primal Therapy is a trauma-based psychotherapy developed and popularized by Arthur Janov, Ph.D.

Janov claimed that in Primal Therapy patients would find their real needs and feelings in the process of experiencing all their "Pain" (a technical term of Primal Theory, see below). One of the fundamental principles of Primal Therapy remains that therapeutic progress can only be made through direct emotional experience, which allows access to the source of psychological pain in the lower brain and nervous system. According to Primal theory, psychological therapies which involve only talking about the problem (referred to as "Talking Therapies") are of limited effectiveness because the cortex, or higher reasoning area of the brain, has no ability to affect the real source of psychological pain in other areas of the brain.

The absence of peer-reviewed outcome studies to substantiate these claims led to the therapy falling out of favor in academic and psychotherapeutic circles. However Dr. Janov and his associates have continued developing the therapy and providing it at his Center in Venice, California.

Lexicon of technical terms

connected feeling

The phrase, "connected feeling", is used in Primal Therapy to denote a full experience which connects the present to the past and connects emotion to meaning. There may also be a connection to sensations in the case of a physically traumatic experience such as physical or sexual abuse or painful birth.

Primal

As a noun or a verb and capitalized, this word has been used to denote the process that patients in Primal Therapy experience of reliving an early painful incident. A Primal has been found, according to Janov, to be marked by a rise in vital signs such as pulse, core body temperature, and blood pressure leading up to the feeling experience and then a falling off of those vital signs to a more normal level than where they began. After Primalling, the patient typically is flooded with insights about how the Pain that was felt changed the way she or he saw the world and reacted to it.

The rise in vital signs indicates the person's neurotic defenses are being stretched to breaking point. The fall to a more normal level indicates a degree of resolution of the Pain. Detailed studies of vital signs of patients were reported by Janov and Holden .

A Primal should not be confused with catharsis or abreaction. Throughout his writing Janov makes this distinction.

The term, "Primal", is not used so much as it was. The word, "feeling", has been pressed back into service in its place but with the understanding that it has a precise technical meaning. (see - "connected feeling")

Primal Pain

In Primal theory, "Pain" (spelled with a capital "P" to distinguish it from ordinary physical, emotional or mental suffering) is unprocessed sensory input of a highly painful, and therefore generally important, nature being stored by the nervous system for processing during a situation more conducive to learning. An event that creates Pain is by definition "traumatic". Situations more conducive to learning may be removal from the immediate danger of the situation and/or adequate neural maturity (in the case of childhood trauma).

primal scream

According to Arthur Janov,

"Primal Therapy is not just making people scream. It was the title of a book. It was never 'Primal Scream Therapy'. Those who read the book knew that the scream is what some people do when they hurt. It was the hurt we were after, not mechanical exercises such as pounding walls and yelling, 'mama'."

Disambiguation

Primal Therapy should not be confused with the similar but philosophically different Primal integration.

Sidenote

John Lennon went through this therapy and produced his raw, emotional "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band" Album.

References

1. Janov, A. & Holden, eM. Primal Man: The New Consciousness (1975) ISBN 069001015X
2. The New Primal Scream: Primal Therapy 20 Years on (1992) ISBN 0942103238

External links

• Dr. Janov's Primal Center home page
• The Primal Institute directed by Vivian Janov

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• Psychotherapy