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
this may be a bit off-topic, but have any PT patients had any success with orthomolecular medicine, ie taking large doses of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, omega oils, etc, etc?
ReplyDeleteArt:
ReplyDeleteI see...and have seen...this up close and personal.
My mother got electro-shocks and Thorazine until she was in her 50s. No one wanted her to feel her feelings, lest they feel THEIRS. Then she got Lithium, without therapy to access her feelings. Her immune system was so weak by that time that when she visited her institutionalized father (finally!) she contracted pneumonia...then died within 24 hours of spinal meningitis.
She always said she'd die when she was 60...and did.
Now? I live with a guy whose parents literally tortured him. The mother had 12 kids, only 6 of which survived. She didn't kill 6, just lost them during childbirth (Maybe God knew?). She herself had been severely abused growing up.
All her kids are "impaired." One now "cares" for her and her 90-year-old husband. They are neglected big-time. The caregiver (my landlord) was diagnosed at near-50 (by the family doctor pressed by Protective Services) as "bipolar."
He's at near toxic levels of Lithium now, takes care of little in the house, and has put on 100 pounds in a year. He has kidney and other "issues" now but believes drugs are The Way. He is perhaps the worst guardian of others.
I see it as karma, him now neglecting parents who'd once abused him.
State monitors are nincompoops. They see nothing...and do even less.
I don't expect the guy to live to 55. He still talks endlessly, is the epitome of disorganization, and doesn't take care of basic bills, food, laundry, necessities, etc.
I've tried to help him "feel" but he refuses, seeing it as weak. He won't watch films that show emotions. He only watches action and splatter films. Yet he can't sleep without the computer and TV on...and often lights.
As I said state monitors are clueless. And the workers who tend to his mother (84 and dying...ever so slowly) see nothing...not even that her arthritic-handed, artificial-knee'd, early Alzheimer's husband has to piss outside because his "caregiver" son, in a fit of mania, destroyed the bathroom (to be renovated...without money to do so).
I'm a "leaky gate" neurotic who, at 63, looks 40. As effed-up as I've felt many times (a stranger in a strange land), I KNOW my ability to FEEL keeps me alive and young. So I watch my landlord (who've I've tried to help "feel") laugh and mock me while I watch HIM age years every week.
You are right. As was the late, great, wonderful, loving Alice Miller. The body DOES know if one has accepted truths or not.
Symphony conductors live long lives because they listen to both soma and psyche. They meld passion with physicality.
Feelings are our friends.
And, of course, there is a BIG difference between true expression and faux. Between primal feelings and abreaction. Mock PT showed me that...so many "screamers" died young or live limited, crazed lives.
Keep on keepin' on.
I would just suggest that you pitch your therapy as "unburdening" instead of "feeling pain." What suffering person wants to feel MORE pain? You need to show that by feeling, with ample support, feelings we are afraid of we can liberate ourselves.
Like a good coach tells a child not to give up just yet when the weights feel heavy, but try maybe one or two more lifts.
Art,
ReplyDeleteSo simple it sounds.
Frank
Grumpy:
ReplyDeleteI have never checked it out. I take D3 and calcium. Art.
A poem by a reader:
ReplyDelete"
The last alive will be primal patients
Nothing else can survive
My god how I wish I was with you
To be into the tears and tears and tears
To understand all I have is fear
And that I deny all
I will never be able to take this therapy
It is the only way to survive
It is I m m o r t a l i t y
I really should do whatever it takes to get involved
From jimmy
I just wanna be a little kid
Love to all past present future
"
i was hoping my earlier comment might generate some feedback; has anyone had success with, or been helped by, vitamins and/or supplements? i notice when i take B and C, as well as niacin, it lessens my need for alcohol.
ReplyDeleteHI Grumpy,
ReplyDeleteI love yeast extract and I notice I crave it and it makes me feel better. Marmite on toast.
I love brown fish and I notice I crave it and it makes me feel better. Mackerel, sardines, salmon etc.
I also get off on hemp seed which the Russian peasants used to mash into butter and spread on black bread.
Lastly I love green veg, raw or cooked. I crave it and it makes me feel better when I get it. The more bitter and dark green the better. Watercress IS the one with all the trace minerals in.
Nutrition is important IF you want to be fully conscious and active.
Best Regards
Paul G.
Paul G.
thanks Paul, i'm going to check out the items you mention, watercress in particular.
ReplyDelete