Art Janov, one of the pioneers of fetal and early infant experiences and future mental health issues, offers a robust vision of how the earliest traumas of life can percolate through the brains, minds and lives of individuals. He focuses on both the shifting tides of brain emotional systems and the life-long consequences that can result, as well as the novel interventions, and clinical understanding, that need to be implemented in order to bring about the brain-mind changes that can restore affective equanimity. The transitions from feelings of persistent affective turmoil to psychological wholeness, requires both an understanding of the brain changes and a therapist that can work with the affective mind at primary-process levels. Life Before Birth, is a manifesto that provides a robust argument for increasing attention to the neuro-mental lives of fetuses and infants, and the widespread ramifications on mental health if we do not. Without an accurate developmental history of troubled minds, coordinated with a recognition of the primal emotional powers of the lowest ancestral regions of the human brain, therapists will be lost in their attempt to restore psychological balance.
Jaak Panksepp, Ph.D.
Bailey Endowed Chair of Animal Well Being Science
Washington State University
Dr. Janov’s essential insight—that our earliest experiences strongly influence later well being—is no longer in doubt. Thanks to advances in neuroscience, immunology, and epigenetics, we can now see some of the mechanisms of action at the heart of these developmental processes. His long-held belief that the brain, human development, and psychological well being need to studied in the context of evolution—from the brainstem up—now lies at the heart of the integration of neuroscience and psychotherapy.
Grounded in these two principles, Dr. Janov continues to explore the lifelong impact of prenatal, birth, and early experiences on our brains and minds. Simultaneously “old school” and revolutionary, he synthesizes traditional psychodynamic theories with cutting-edge science while consistently highlighting the limitations of a strict, “top-down” talking cure. Whether or not you agree with his philosophical assumptions, therapeutic practices, or theoretical conclusions, I promise you an interesting and thought-provoking journey.
Lou Cozolino, PsyD, Professor of Psychology, Pepperdine University
In Life Before Birth Dr. Arthur Janov illuminates the sources of much that happens during life after birth. Lucidly, the pioneer of primal therapy provides the scientific rationale for treatments that take us through our original, non-verbal memories—to essential depths of experience that the superficial cognitive-behavioral modalities currently in fashion cannot possibly touch, let alone transform.
Gabor Maté MD, author of In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction
An expansive analysis! This book attempts to explain the impact of critical developmental windows in the past, implores us to improve the lives of pregnant women in the present, and has implications for understanding our children, ourselves, and our collective future. I’m not sure whether primal therapy works or not, but it certainly deserves systematic testing in well-designed, assessor-blinded, randomized controlled clinical trials.
K.J.S. Anand, MBBS, D. Phil, FAACP, FCCM, FRCPCH, Professor of Pediatrics, Anesthesiology, Anatomy & Neurobiology, Senior Scholar, Center for Excellence in Faith and Health, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare System
A baby's brain grows more while in the womb than at any time in a child's life. Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script That Rules Our Lives is a valuable guide to creating healthier babies and offers insight into healing our early primal wounds. Dr. Janov integrates the most recent scientific research about prenatal development with the psychobiological reality that these early experiences do cast a long shadow over our entire lifespan. With a wealth of experience and a history of successful psychotherapeutic treatment, Dr. Janov is well positioned to speak with clarity and precision on a topic that remains critically important.
Paula Thomson, PsyD, Associate Professor, California State University, Northridge & Professor Emeritus, York University
"I am enthralled.
Dr. Janov has crafted a compelling and prophetic opus that could rightly dictate PhD thesis topics for decades to come. Devoid of any "New Age" pseudoscience,
this work never strays from scientific orthodoxy and yet is perfectly accessible and
downright fascinating to any lay person interested in the mysteries of the human psyche."
Dr. Bernard Park, MD, MPH
His new book “Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script that Rules Our Lives” shows that primal therapy, the lower-brain therapeutic method popularized in the 1970’s international bestseller “Primal Scream” and his early work with John Lennon, may help alleviate depression and anxiety disorders, normalize blood pressure and serotonin levels, and improve the functioning of the immune system.
One of the book’s most intriguing theories is that fetal imprinting, an evolutionary strategy to prepare children to cope with life, establishes a permanent set-point in a child's physiology. Baby's born to mothers highly anxious during pregnancy, whether from war, natural disasters, failed marriages, or other stressful life conditions, may thus be prone to mental illness and brain dysfunction later in life. Early traumatic events such as low oxygen at birth, painkillers and antidepressants administered to the mother during pregnancy, poor maternal nutrition, and a lack of parental affection in the first years of life may compound the effect.
In making the case for a brand-new, unified field theory of psychotherapy, Dr. Janov weaves together the evolutionary theories of Jean Baptiste Larmarck, the fetal development studies of Vivette Glover and K.J.S. Anand, and fascinating new research by the psychiatrist Elissa Epel suggesting that telomeres—a region of repetitive DNA critical in predicting life expectancy—may be significantly altered during pregnancy.
After explaining how hormonal and neurologic processes in the womb provide a blueprint for later mental illness and disease, Dr. Janov charts a revolutionary new course for psychotherapy. He provides a sharp critique of cognitive behavioral therapy, psychoanalysis, and other popular “talk therapy” models for treating addiction and mental illness, which he argues do not reach the limbic system and brainstem, where the effects of early trauma are registered in the nervous system.
“Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script that Rules Our Lives” is scheduled to be published by NTI Upstream in October 2011, and has tremendous implications for the future of modern psychology, pediatrics, pregnancy, and women’s health.
Editor
Art,
ReplyDeleteHow do you expect anyone to understand what Charlie Parker's music contained in a psychological message? I went on You Tube to listen and I understand perfectly what you say... more restless in the music's path is hard to summon up... but that it would be of reason... that his feelings was flipping through his thoughts to repress... leaking emotional cues... is probably not what ignorant of the emotional effect of thoughts understand. Maybe now that you brought up the issue. I could not stand more than a little while and it was during the analysis I my self could make of Charlie's mental health and what that now sufficient?
Frank
Art, i envy your having seen Bird (Parker) in person; however i find your analysis (if you can call it that) of him to be simplistic; you seem to want to make him fit your own theories; i would say that, when it came to music, Bird knew exactly what he was doing; he wasn't just some psychotic nutter; he built on what came before him, and he took it to a whole other level; along with a lot of other guys, ie Monk, Bud Powell, Art Tatum, yadda yadda; he was one of the true geniuses, musical or otherwise, the human race has ever produced; unfortunately, he also had the misfortune of being a heroin addict; not to mention being African-American caught up in a segregated and racist society...anyways, i appreciate your bringing one of my heroes into the conversation... cheers-nelson.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Grumpy! Parker had some serious problems but he knew what he was doing on the horn. He might have been, as Miles Davis once described him, the most selfish person he ever met but he wasn't crazy.
DeletePTCruiser: Running the nude down the street is normal????? art
DeleteNelson: One of my heroes as well. I was playing in band at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, just back from Europe and all of us went down to study Charlie and the other guys. art
ReplyDeleteI believe Clint Eastwood did a movie on him, too.
ReplyDeleteWikipedia says he was a heroin addict, then an alcoholic (when drugs weren't readily available)...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Parker#Death
Drugs/booze can explain the nakedness and other act-outs. The real question is: what caused the pain he was trying to numb?
I like THE ARTIST'S WAY in that it says creativity is not "driven" by drugs or craziness. The author thinks Van Gogh and others created despite their pains...and would probably have done even MORE had they been "sober."
I bet Bird would have soared if he'd not drugged and drank...at least not so much.
Again: what demons dogged him so much that he looked like 60 when he died at 34?
Harmony is a dormant state of mind and to the delight of the "soul"... if not... we find other ways and that is what I experience with Charlie Parker. Run fast... we do when something hunt us.
ReplyDeleteFrank
Frank: I think you mean "haunt us". AJ
ReplyDeletehe was very talented. he puts a different accent on every little note....plays with a lot of feel. his nervous system clashes with mine. he makes me feel irritated and more unsettled than i already am. i don't want to jog and jiggle. i guess that's the parasympath in me. Art, i suspect you are a sympath. i bet France doesn't really groove with Charlie. am i right? :D
ReplyDeletewhat instrument do you play? i play keyboard and computer
Art,
ReplyDeleteYes...tank you
Frank
Richard: Nope not a sympath. Most of my vital signs are low as is certainly body temp;, which is how I characterize the parasympath. I played trumpet and not very good; I played in a mental hospital band called the Psychopathic Synchopaters. and when the guy I was playing with was so great and so crazy I realized that I could never be as good as him. art
ReplyDeleteTrevor, do check out "Bird" (1988) that Eastwood directed; it captures the whole 40's/50's zeitgeist; and Forrest Whittaker as Parker, if a bit over the top, is excellent; better yet, rent "Round Midnight" (1986) by the French director Bernard Tavernier and starring Dexter Gordon, another titan of the saxophone...as for the forces that drove Parker, that's a tough question to answer; my sense is that he felt constrained, by society and by the music of the time; and, early on, by his own abilities; and needed to break free; but happily so; his music has never sounded angry to me, but joyful, always...and Art, the name of that band you played in, that's priceless! and may i also wish you a very happy birthday which, if wikipedia can be believed, is just a few days away? felicidades!- nelson
ReplyDeleteRichard: David Foster is out of the country but I will see if we can get one of the songs we wrote on the blog. AJ
ReplyDeleteA facebook comment: "What's the point, Richard? Did I just hear a sadness celebration? The point is that when a feelings departs from the soul, a tiny piece of truth takes its place. The most difficult part of the therapy is that when we are near or inside the feeling, it is rare that someone (who understands primal therapy) will be there for us. So what? Use the alternative of shutting off completely? Stuffed with pain? Acting out? Smoking? Drinking? Driving like nuts? Killing people? Suffering 24/7? 24/7.........AMAZING QUANTITY!!!! It's your life, however, your choice, your responsibility! And although the pain seems endless, I believe it ends! Vasiliki, some wounds (unfortunately) need a person beside us, maybe behind us, especially the "being alone" feelings. But, yes, you are right. The road is ours, our own path and many times will be walked by us and our solitude."
ReplyDeleteA previous facebook comment:"yeah life feels more real and meaningful when you cry. so what? nobody is there to understand your pain. nobody cares. so you cry alone and it solves nothing. i would rather stay numb so i can function better until i get therapy. i hate sad music and i hate people who celebrate sadness. i have spent many years trying to comfort a sad person. in the few times when i have been really sad, she has left me to cry alone. we are all weak in our sadness - so what's the point?"
ReplyDeleteI'm probably a bit too late to make an impact on this one:
ReplyDelete-"yeah life feels more real and meaningful when you cry. so what? nobody is there to understand your pain. nobody cares. so you cry alone and it solves nothing".
Get a teddy, one you like. When you begin to notice how (when you cry) that he can be soft and furry and there for you. After a while you might find that your crying deepens and your love of teddy deepens and still later you might find a real person with skills and. . .
Paul G.
paul my mother was in a different world - no hugs - and i didn't have a teddy. i am not capable of loving a stuffed toy. and i can assure you there are very few human substitutes. i once got so depressed i started vomiting with each surge of despair (i can totally relate to Art's description of vomiting when he was in the navy).
ReplyDeletei'm just saying, if you despair you will become disfunctional. i agree that a few tears can provide some temporary relief, but don't ever slip into depression. i guess i was getting confused in the discussion. depression is not really "sadness." depression is hopelessness - but it never gets down to the cause of the hopelessness.
Paul,
ReplyDeleteWhen you cry alone for solitude you need to live with ... loneliness that was ... it's not useless anymore ... you are then to be "aware" of the loneliness you have not experienced ... then it makes sense to be just the feeling of futility ... feeling we could never cope. The teddy is a help on the way to loneliness.
Frank
Hi guys,
ReplyDeleteSorry, I'm a bit late on replying to this, blame the scrutinisers for taking so long with the Q/C (I always do).
Ted for me is not just a symbol. Nor is he the only object of my affections and interest.
But for me, I only have Ted now. I don't say you should have a stuffed toy, I am speaking from my experience. Ted supersedes my body-work therapist who got me into this "uncharted territory" in the first place.
My experience is similar to vomiting and I sometimes am sheer terror as I fall into the void, eyes wide awake. A build up of despair often accompanies the first stage; it is like a warning, an alarm in your internal awareness, an aspect of being a nervous system. Fear, my words are a thought out of place.
If you vomit, I reckon, that's ok. Call it "affect".
I know this re-living is the real thing and not ab-reaction by the strength of my terror.
If you keep looking inward and see what is happening to you, you will survive the re-living and not die of fright. That is why we are so repressed now; because we were so overwhelmed with terror then. Not now.
Paul G.
An email comment: "I forwarded your post on Charlie Parker to a jazz man at our radio station and he replied as such......
ReplyDeleteThere's usually more to just about anything than meets the eye (or ear), and so enjoy a differing perspective!
Who knows??
One way or another, the man shook up the whole world!
"Bird Lives!" is what the jazz world says. Godawful lot of suffering though......unimaginable....."
And my answer: I talked to Parker and my guess is he was already deeply disturbed, hardly knowing where he was. But that polemic could go on and on. He was my hero nevertheless, as were all the early guys from Monk onward. I read what autobiographies they wrote and it helped me understand a lot. art janov
ReplyDelete