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Revision as of 07:26, 13 September 2006 by GrahameKing (talk | contribs) (major revision)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)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" (technical terms of Primal Theory are introduced with bold type, see lexicon 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.
Mental illness
In Primal Theory, mental illness is one illness with many different forms of expression. The mental illness of the psychopath, the neurotic and the psychotic in all cases has, at its root, pain that was too threatening to be felt - the pain of unfulfilled need. This Pain, as it is termed, is automatically repressed by the central nervous system but at the cost of disordering the interconnections of the mind, impairing consciousness so that the individual can not access the original trauma. This allows survival but at a much reduced level of functioning. Repression is never completely effective. Events in later life are always capable of reactivating the imprinted Pain resulting in symptoms such as anxiety, compulsions, outbursts of disproportionate emotion, depression, etcetera.
The main determinate of whether a person becomes a psychotic or a psychopath rather than a neurotic is the "charge" or "valance" of the Pain. When Pain is extreme these extreme forms of illness can result. It is claimed that psychotics have been succesfully treated in Primal Therapy. According to one psychotic patient's account,"...I know now that the needs have to be felt before their lack of fulfillment can be faced."
Origins of neurosis
Primal Theory holds that most people suffer from some degree of neurosis. This begins very early in life as a result of needs not being met. There may be one or more isolated traumatic events but more often it's a case of daily neglect or abuse that culminates, usually around the age of six, in a feeling that is conceptualized as not being loved or wanted. (This usually occurs around the age of six because it is at that time in the child's development that the nervous system is almost completely myelinated, at which point it becomes neurologically possible to conceptualize the Pain.) A six year old is still not emotionally or intellectually capable of accepting such an awful concept - not being loved by one's parents - it would be competely overwhelming. So the protective gating mechanisms of the central nervous system automatically repress the Pain.
Neurosis may begin to develop at birth, or even before, with first line Pains, which then make the infant very irritable and difficult to care for. This can bring another round of trauma if the parents' patience is stretched beyond the limit.
From the age of six on, the child develops more elaborate second line and third line defenses as the early unmet needs keep pressing for satisfaction in symbolic and therefore inevitably unsatisfying ways.
Needs
There are many basic needs which so often go unfulfilled, including some that were not previously widely recognized (as needs), such as our need to be touched and held. These have been catalogued in many of Janov's books. "Our first needs are solely physical ones for nourishment, safety and comfort. Later we have emotional needs for affection, understanding and respect for our feelings. Finally intellectual needs to know and to understand emerge."
Primal Therapy
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Lexicon of technical terms
connected feeling
The phrase, "connected feeling", is used in Primal Theory to denote a conscious 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.
consciousness
In Primal Theory consciousness is not simply awareness but refers to a state of the entire organism including the brain in which there is "fluid access" between the constituents.
Based on the work of a number of neuroscientists including Paul D. MacLean, three levels of consciousness are recognised in Primal Theory:
first level
This is the somatosensory level which mediates sensation and visceral responses and incorporates the "body mind".
second level
This is the affective level which mediates emotional responses and incorporates the "feeling mind".
third level
This is the cognitive level which mediates the intellectual faculties and incorporates the "thinking mind".
When referring to Pain or defense the word "line" is used instead of "level"; e.g. first line Pain, third line defense.
Pain
In Primal theory, "Pain" (capitalized to distinguish it from ordinary physical, emotional or mental suffering) is unprocessed 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" (automatically repressed as too threatening). 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). For the neurotic, the situation more conducive to learning has not yet arrived.
Depending on which level of consciousness the Pain is imprinted upon, it is called first, second or third line Pain.
Primal
As a noun or a verb and capitalized, this word denotes the reliving of an early painful feeling. A complete 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 the Primal ("post-primal"), the patient typically is flooded with insights about how the Pain that was felt had changed the way she or he had thought of the world and reacted to it throughout life.
Based on detailed studies, Janov and Holden claimed that the pre-primal rise in vital signs indicates the person's neurotic defenses are being stretched to the point of producing an "acute anxiety attack" (the conventional description), and the fall to more normal levels than pre-primal levels indicates a degree of resolution of the Pain.
A Primal should not be confused with catharsis or abreaction. Throughout his writing Janov makes this distinction. A "Primal", is often referred to as a "connected feeling".
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'."
Sidenote
The musician John Lennon went through Primal therapy in 1970, and shortly afterward produced his raw, emotional album, "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band". The album featured a number of songs which were directly inspired by his experience in therapy, including "Remember," "Isolation," "I Found Out", "God," "Mother," "My Mummy's Dead," and "Working Class Hero." (For more on this subject, see the webpage, "John Lennon - Primal therapy,"which includes excerpts of interviews of John Lennon, Arthur Janov and Vivian Janov, along with an account of one of John's therapy sessions written by Pauline Lennon.)
References
- Janov, A., The Primal Scream (1970) ISBN 0-349-11829-9
- ^ Janov, A. The New Primal Scream: Primal Therapy 20 Years on (1992) ISBN 0-94210-323-8
- ^ Janov, A. & Holden, eM. Primal Man: The New Consciousness (1975) ISBN 0-69001-015-X
External links
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