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
"..those who grew up in institutions had a great number of epigenetic changes in cells that are involved with immune function.." again, evolution weeding out those unloved, as cruel as that sounds.
ReplyDeleteJxx
jacquie, look at everyone. what do you see? evolution has NOT weeded out the unloved people. nature does everything it can to ensure the survival of the weakest, and the fittest, and the cruelest (hyenas are a good example) and sometimes the kindest animals manage to survive too.
Deletemother nature is the garden - she is not the gardener. cortisol is not a weedkiller. it's a hormone that helps you to cope with an immediate threat.
Hi Richard
Deleteyes, but the epigenetic changes, stress, compromise your system so you may not deal as effectively w/life.
We are bound to a life-threatening condition... and from there... we are "bound" to do what eases the pain... pain as suffering "was" the only medication against... what to do... what “decisions” to make... to run for life. We are at the mercy of unfortunate circumstances without the ability to influence for what the content says… and that... as long as these deliriants in the psychological field does not come to terms with Janovs Primal Therapy.
ReplyDeleteWe suffers for decision without even know what the consequences will be. What is it in the primal therapeutic science… science that silences a worldwide revolutionary process? Well... it is sufferings ... suffering that does not tells what it is the suffering really is about...not even when a whole nation goes to war is the question of this human "fundamental" disease a question of/for science.
There is nothing that proves those circumstances… and if it does… the thinking brain is needed for a possible change… and what those brain does... we know very well.
No I have not given up… this is just a thought that might arouse views for new goals.
Frank
Dr. Janov and all,
ReplyDeleteThere are so many interpretations of “what is love” and I cannot relate to any of these descriptions. I would describe love as TRUST. Trusting your mother that she will not abandon you, give you what you need and not manipulating you while you are vulnerable.
Naturally, this feeling confirms my history. I, as well as my brothers, were born for only one reason, to keep my father from leaving my mother. After birth we were shoved off. I ended up with my Grandmother and each of my brothers had a nurse.
Later, after the age of about 7 I was used as servant.
I became the cheap laborer, when the housekeepers left because they could not deal with my father’s rage. At age of 8 I became responsible for my brothers, most of all for my newborn brother. In addition I had to take care of the house, laundry and cooking. My mother treated me with as much disrespect as she treated all employees. Love? I didn’t know then what it was as a child and have a hard time finding it even today. I don’t like to be touched or hugged, because I still associate touch with sexual favors, which dominated my childhood (raped by my half-brother at age 10). Today, I still don’t know how to trust.
Often I ask myself, will I ever know what love is all about?
Sieglinde
Dr. Janov,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “Early stress from separation from one's parents impacted later physical and mental health.”
“…to try to undo methylation will take great effort if that methylation of the genome is to be reversed.”
I read finally all research experts available on Embryonic development: “After fertilization of an oocyte and formations of a zygote, its combined genome is demethylated and remethylated again.”
In reference with: “Interleukin-36–Receptor Antagonist Deficiency and Generalized Pustular Psoriasis”
French researcher found out (interleukin-36Ra), an antiinflammatory cytokine. This belongs to the group of “methylation - knockout mutants”.
As I begin to understand the combination between prenatal neglect, in combination with neglect after birth, resulting in many illnesses I suffer from (uncontrollable inflammation and 50 years psoriasis, besides my cancer, a Chiari malformation) I begin to understand now the full impact - how much damage my mother has done to me. I wish to act out, rage about the permanent physical and psychological health issues she left me. In other, more simple words - I wish I could beat the living shit out of her.
Sieglinde
Ah yes... children who have been traumatised and unloved. Well, yet another child seems to be getting batterred emotionally (not physically at least), namely my 7 year-old downstairs neighbor, a beautiful half-Chinese girl , who despite it all sings regularly.Tonight, as I was going down the stairs pass their door, I could hear the mother just ripping into this girl verbally, with scorn and hate, absolutely relentless (just like my mother used to). And I could hear the poor kid whimpering and whining, all this hate searing her soul.And there was nothing I could do about it....
ReplyDeleteMarco
Marco, a horrible experience for you.... the feelings must have been powerful there.... look at Norm Lee's work
Deletehttp://www.nopunish.net/nl-bio.htm
I have found him very helpful in dealing with this stuff and empowering others to be advocates for kids...
Marco: this page talks about intervention in situations where children are being harmed/threatened:
Deletehttp://www.nopunish.net/interven.htm
Marco,
ReplyDeleteYou are right. Our hands do appear to be tied. But in a perfect world, which most seem to avoid and resist, neighbors would all support each other and decency and you would have been able to knock on that door and read that bitch her rights and tell her off, like she was doing to the kid. And the law and neighbors would have stood right behind you. None of us really cares. Governments like abuse. It makes people easy to handle and control.
As well, my laws would state that if you have problems and are not working to fix them, i.e. get some therapy and fast, then you will be held fully accountable for inexcusable abuse such as that you related. Hey, I don’t mess around. Our world needs fix'in bad!
"This comment has been removed by a blog administrator."
ReplyDeleteI don't know why you published my comment and then removed it....
I was just trying to point out that there may be a typo...maybe 'Denmark' instead of 'DNA'...I guess not.
I removed it because you stated "This comment is not for posting"?
DeleteArt: To those of us in the world-wide Primal Community, we don't need all that neuro-science to assist in the validity of Primal Theory. For those outside of the Primal community, all the neuro-science from now till 'kingdom-come' will not move their opinion one jot (cos their opinion is based on inaccessible feelings they won't even recognize exist)
ReplyDeleteThere is A NEED for a different approach. What that approach could be IMO is to way-lay all those notions of heterosexual relationships that make for a satisfying life (in the head) that often culminate in bringing children into the world either accidentally, or through some notion of it being an enhancements of the core adult relationship. No-one that I am aware of is promoting this approach of mine.
I will list my idea of a list that should be the "no-no's" to creating a child.
The idea that it is natures way solely to reproduce the species without taking into enormous consideration what happens to females on conception, that automatically starts a "love" for that creation.
The idea that making the female pregnant will enhance the 'two-some' nature of that core relationship. It won't, and never will; it makes for a different relationship which is becoming a 'three-some'; at least.
An accidental pregnancy should be immediately terminated ... unless the female become hormonally integrated into "loving" that creation and will, and is able, to continue it well into the ensuing childhood.
The pre-conceived knowledge on the part of the couple, or female that child rearing is TOTAL DEVOTION (slavery if you like) to that infant through many years of childhood as well as the nine months of pregnancy.
The 'normalcy' of current heterosexual relationships under this capitalist system we current live under. We're all perverted by it.
I wrote a chapter about it in both my books but never having created a child, let alone reared one, (I offered it from the child's perspective; mine) give me no credence what-so-ever. Hopefully, and I did hope that would be you Art, would write a whole book devoted to that WITHOUT having first to to prove neuro-scientifically, (you've already adequately done that) to the fetus, infant then child. If not you Art ... then who?
Jack
Jack, You can do both. You need science to avoid the booga booga meisters. Art.
DeleteHi Paul, thanks for your comment. Well at least I don't live in a violent neighborhood, which must be worse for kids. On the other hand, this verbally abusive "mother" I refer to is definitely of the yuppie bourgeoisie (French from France variation),so the kid is not only getting hated, she is getting mind-fucked with middle class rationalisations and moralistic garbage. And as Janov points out, it sometimes seems to be easier to get through to working class types because ,with them, it it straight to the point. Or am I being patronising saying that ?
DeleteMarco
Jack, that was a very good analysis you gave. Good reasons for not breeding or at least giving breeding serious thought. Most people interpret the Bible's seemingly prohibitive sexual restraints is to insure protection of the conceived, and that after birth, it has parents who belong to a larger community that help reinforce marriage and decent rules of conduct for all. this is a broad attempt to old the whole community into a better place for a child.
DeleteAs for any who would like to dump on the Bible, I have no problem with that as long as they can come up with something equal or better. But breeding means a large commitment, not just from parents but from community and country. If we all get laid off and unemployed, what will that do for a child? All the world's problems become all the children's problems. If a couple suffers uncertainty and public chaos, their suffering will affect that child.
I really respect your post in this regard. Would like to see more of the same. It needs said. You are doing well at saying it. Keep it up.
Hi Jacquie (& Art),
ReplyDeleteI do not believe there is any evolutionary purpose or benefit or link to any form of abuse or its' neurotic/disease consequences.
Sorry, I just don't get it, I was institutionalised as a child for years and I don't take too kindly to the idea that the epigenetic changes in me could even remotely benefit evolution or society particularly if I die soon.
Unless of course I believe I deserve to die. I'd just rather get myself to the clinic.
Neurosis and disease seems a total out & out loss. There is no benefit, Full stop. Could others feed back please? I'm stumped here.
Paul G.
(PS. I wrote a much longer rude version of this).
Hi Paul
DeleteI'm sorry if I've inadvertently offended you, no offence intended, this is not personal. Please see my response to Richard above, the same applies; I believe epigenetic changes that occur due to stress on the developing baby, as well as other adverse conditions (which then in turn stress the system), altho they produce coping mechanisms, they also heavily compromise the system, in ways that can then led to the person not dealing as effectively w/life, including the possibility of later illness.
I'm sorry you were institutionalised, and I'm glad you've found this blog/Primal.
J
Hi Richard and Paul G.,
DeleteI did reply to your posts. Thanks for your comments
Jacquie
Hi Marco,
ReplyDeleteYeah, there's a little half Jamaican Kid (4-5yrs) in the house next door of the social housing terrace I used to live in UK. The white 'mother' just completely rips into him. . .
I've been round to 'knock on the door for a cup of sugar' a few times. . .
She just sneered at me.
Everyone else just ignores it. I personally have no confidence in the Social Services and I know the Jamaican boyfriend probably packs heat. Outside my house a few years back the armed police had some one down on the ground with guns. . . A while later two Somali/Jamaican knife fights resulting in one fatality and another mugging fatality.
I don't get involved but I try to acknowledge the mother and the child, rather than freezing them out.
Paul G.
So
Who needs more love?
ReplyDeletePractical consequences of being deprived of love.
I followed the always exiting European soccer game (together with 100‘s of millions of TV-spectators around the globe) between Real Madrid and Barcelona the other night and it’s aftermath. Then I read your Reflections of the Human Conditions with great interest to see if I could find at least a farfetched answer to why certain key individuals, often predictable, behaviors turn out the way they do.
Professional soccer is filled of neurotic (some on the border of psychotic) managers, trainers and players of which quite a few are earning between 10 and 20 million dollars a year which inflate both their egos and the superhuman performance expectations on them. When things do not turn out the way, the fanatic fans expect, no wonder that a repressed player after a few mistakes loses his control. As a response on feeling of being worthless and unloved he starts to do evil things to his opponents. He performed in a few minutes, after having made a match crucial mistake, dirty tackles, stepped on a downed opponent’s hand and made an attempt to simulate to have been receiving an unfair impact of another opponent to his face.
Aterwards, he said (which he presumably was forced to do by his club) that what he had been accused of doing (in front of a few hundred million TV-viewer) he would never do to an opponent. He had not knowingly tried to damage his opponents. Nobody believes him, only the fact that so much money is in play for his club, Real Madrid, does that they close up around him and put the lid on.
The player in question has experienced a number of similar situations over the last few years. His behavior in a losing situation is very predictable. His present trainer and responsible (being a Portuguese-speaking compatriot) is a “win at all cost BPD neurotic” with all the classic signs of having a need to compensate for loss of love in a crucial period of his life, which has made the player an easy victim for his psychotic pressure.
Even if I hated his behavior on Wednesday night, I feel sorry for the player, understanding the pain which causes his short circuits. They are not that far apart from what you have described about what has happened to a number of serial murderers. However, the multimillion-audience on the air, of which many are young kids, certainly do not forgive him for not having got enough love before or after his birth... And to advise him to go looking for the feeling of no love won’t be easy with his present trainer, José Morinhou.
Jan Johnsson
Dear Dr. Janov
ReplyDeleteThank you for this beautiful post. I appreciate you.
It is very important that we have to go back to the past to heal the present to be released from the future. But how do we get released from the future and get our minds to live in the NOW?
I have a family member of mine that did Primal therapy years ago and that is stuck in the pain and hurt and anger and fear of the past and can just JUST NOT enjoy the present. He has even tried to commit suicide once. I personally think that suicide is a sign of taking life to seriously.
I have noticed that forgiveness (of Self and others) is not part of the process of primal. I would love to play victim my entire life but I have realised that my "True Power” of who I am beyond this package that was given a name by my parents is NOT who I am. I realise today that everyting that has ever happened to me was absolutely PERFECT to bring me where I am today. I am who I am because of the lessons my past forced me to adress about myself so that I can grow in spirit. I thank my past teachers every morning when I wake up.
I am not the victim of my past but the Creator of my reality .
I leave you with a clip I found on the internet regarding the “IDEA” of forgiveness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf0YzT8QzH8&feature=share
I also found this very interesting thought on DNA and that we are not a product of our genes that make us who we are.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTAt5Y9Iitk
As always in pure truth, peace, love and light.
Mike van Niekerk
Mike: Forgiveness is a religious notion; nothing to do with any therapy or science. art.
DeleteThat was a really good comment it “paints” (a Swedish expression) us into a corner… corner of no way out for more than we have done. If I have put an axe in to a tree the “words” will never heal… the scare will be there forever… and nothing can change ... delete or add to what is done. Asking for forgiveness is impossible for more than I wish (the religious act) that all was undone. That wish belongs to an incident around my father when he tried to hit me when I took a piece of bred from the dining table. I could have hit him with the axe if that would have been possible. An attempt to be loved? Yes it is… when I will feel what there was I needed.
DeleteFrank
Paul,
ReplyDeleteI’m with you. No benefits to primally painful injuries/traumas and their consequences. But we can learn from our experience. But it would be far better if we could avoid attacks and pain. All I can say is that we try to make the best we can of that which we can not control.
Dr. Janov,
ReplyDeleteI’m dissecting Life Before Birth and have many questions. The more intriguing for right now is on page 55 - Hormones and Homosexuality – the finger length the shorter legs/wider hips. I puzzled by how estrogens and testosterone influences the length of the fingers/legs. Would you like to elaborate on the subject? Or can you direct me to related information? My ring finger is slightly (1/4 cm) longer then the index finger. What does this mean?
Because the information in Life Before Birth is very vital, I decided to send each of my doctors, the one who finally respected my pain and found the right diagnosis, the book.
I started in December, by sending the first to my neurosurgeon who took care of my Chiari. The second in January was my physician who also has many pregnant woman in his care. The third will be my Endocrinologist, who believed me and agreed to monthly cortisol testing.
Afterwards, one LBB together with an MRI-printout must go to one very ignorant and arrogant idiot Doctor, who told me that there is nothing wrong with me and my migraines are my way of acting out. 20 years ago he sent me home with the message, “take aspirin and don’t act so neurotic”.
So from now on, I will send every month (as I can afford) LBB to a doctor I have/had personal contact with.
When LBB is published in German I will send it off to the many doctors and university Professors I’m in contact with. The first German publication will go to the German Mother-Magazine who contacted me 4 years ago and was very interested in Nils Bergman’s (Kangaroo Mother Care) work.
Thank you for writing this book.
Sieglinde
Sieglinde: good idea. There is the original doctors who did the research, one was Dorner. The other someone called Danielwizc or something like that. But there are references in the book. art The whole idea is that trauma at a certain time change your hormones and anatomy, alters development and you may be able to see it finger length. Makes sense.
DeleteYes Jan,
ReplyDeletehow when we are caught in the behaviour of our defences we must point the finger at others' pain and call it crime. "It" is always 'out there' before the Primal connection is restored. Isn't football and sport so much an Up-Roar for pent up primal feeling?
Paul G.
I need love but I can't feel the need for it in its real form, due to repression.I understand, technically, that I cannot know what real love feels like until I open up that part of myself via PT. Only then can I truly know what Art's therapy has to offer.
ReplyDeleteAnd that is the problem and my point: Art is trying to sell people something that has a value that they literally can't even imagine. We say we are happy and successful with our lives, but do we and can we even know the difference? Not really.
Andrew: I am not selling anything. I am putting psychotherapy on a scientific basis; that is all. art
Delete...to try to undo methylation will take great effort if that methylation of the genome is to be reversed. Judging by some of our studies on reversing neurosis [vital signs, cortisol, imipramine binding, etc,] it is possible to remove some of the imprinted pain, whether that means reversal of methylation we will have to see.”
ReplyDeleteJust going out on a limb here. My guess is that the probability of reducing some of that early methylation - and possibly reversing it fully - tips toward a future yes.
This optimistic guess is based on a characteristic of primal theory. Robustness.
For example, there are some theories in physics that exhibit profound “robustness.” Newton’s discovery of the force of gravity. F= MA.
This elegantly simple statement of three relationships, explains so much. Certainly, why the apple fell on Newton’s head, but also why and precisely how the earth rotates around the sun in an ellipse, how the sun remains the center of a massive solar system and how each planetary body - from an asteroid, to a planet, to each separate moon - all revolve around each other. From the micro world - apple falling - to the macro world - a vast multitude of galaxies all moving away from each other - Newton’s simple observation understands, explains and predicts so much of this behavior.
That characteristic to predictably operate at so many varying levels of physical scale and size - from the moon’s pull on the ocean tides to the massive forces at play in the universe - is sometimes referred to as a “robust” theory. Robust theories open wide the doors to our understanding of the physical universe.
Similarly, E=MC2. Another elegant statement of an observed relationship. This statement opens wide the door to understanding and prediction of so much behavior in so many varying scales and arenas. From the understanding of a nuclear power plant, to the creation of a nuclear bomb. From the understanding of the source of fuel in the sun to a prediction of the time required for the sun to collapse. From helping to explain the behavior of dark holes to travel in the space-time continuum.
So, let’s ask a question. In the field of human behavior what elegant theory, if any, has science uncovered which explains at the macro scale - human behavior such as repression, anger, love, nurture, psychosis, etc. and at the same time explains what is happening at different biological levels in the reptile, mammal, and primate regions of the human brain?
What theory of human behavior has science uncovered which at the same time also explains what is happening at the molecular level- imipramine binding, cortisol, and possibly the gene level?
So far no theory comes close to opening wide the doors of understanding to all of these levels human behavior except Primal Theory. Primal theory alone has proven to be the profoundly robust theory within the broad spectrum of human behavior. Primal theory alone has reversed a spectrum of powerfully developed neuroses at the behavior level. At the microscopic scale, primal theory has reversed a spectrum of lifelong systemic vital signs such as temperature, blood pressure, pulse, and metabolism at the molecular level.
So a robust Primal Theory as pioneered, developed, and practiced by Art Janov, is the first place to look for a possible theoretical breakthrough that will undo molecular changes at the epigenetic level.
Jim: Brilliant, as usual. art
DeleteQuote: "Primal theory alone has proven to be the profoundly robust theory within the broad spectrum of human behavior."
DeleteExactly, and nice to see someone else stating it. By comparison the other stuff is not even theory.
Another piece of evidence that might add to the weight of evidence favoring a breakthrough reversal of methylation is the primal idea that evolution developed the “neurotic” mechanism in primates in order to save the life of an infant and/or young human suffering in overwhelming pain.
ReplyDeleteMercifully, the life of the organism is saved at that moment of overwhelming suffering. But at the same time the full expression of that human is put on hold. What benefit is there in limping emotionally through life?
However, years later, as an adult, that same evolutionary mechanism that once saved a life in distress, now holds the key to begin to undo the effects of that deep repression - and thereby to begin a journey to regain a fuller expression of that individual human’s potential.
Evolution mercifully gave us a second chance at life - neurotic repression of suffering. And, then years later, a chance to heal the deep metabolic wounds and behavioral wounds and eventually recover a full life.
Then why would that evolutionary mechanism not include the attempt to reverse some, or perhaps all, of the epigenetic alterations?
Did evolution attempt to make this mechanism “readily” available? I referred in a prior thread, “On Going Hunting,” that as a young man, my adventures took me into a tribal village -and brought me face to face with an ancient way of life. Unknown to me, or perhaps even to the villagers, their deeply intuitive way of life was “primal friendly.”
I was never compelled, asked, or invited to open to my “feelings.” But, simply living, loving, sharing and laughing with these kind and joyful villagers for two years gently put me in touch with deep signals emanating from my entire being - from the limbic system, to the brainstem, perhaps even from the epigenetic level? A signal that it was now safe to heal?
Although I was deeply repressed, given a nurturing, ancient environment something triggered my limbic system, my brainstem to open at their own pace and moment. Eventually, I experienced a precipitous event.
There was deep crying, a series of vivid memories stretching back into the far reaches of my childhood. And, at the end of a half hour or so, an extraordinary calm and relaxation.
Despite some confusion about the newness and strangeness of it all, I still came away from my virgin primal experience, with a solid conviction that access to feelings was natural and safe, as was so many other natural behaviors which these villagers took for granted.
Is it not amazing, that I came away from that single experience with a powerful intuitive feeling that this particular crying was good - despite the decades of repressing any crying, decades of repressing the suffering that my parents and western culture continuously impressed and fiercely branded upon me?
Several more years passed, including a draft into the heart of a horrific civil war, before I wandered into a bookstore, and discovered the writing of another human being with an elegant theory that explained so much of what was happening inside me as well as the introductory healing event I encountered in that village.
Evolution has experimented with some powerful tools for healing such as wound healing. In some species, limb healing. And in primates, psychic healing? Why would evolutionary forces not experiment with fully reversing damage which we - in our state of ignorance - might currently consider to be irreversible?
Thanks again Art, for continuing to lead the way to a robust, evidence based understanding of this profound mechanism.
Jim we need your help. please get hold of bruce wilson. art
Deletejim i like the way you write. very easy to read and interesting. perhaps that tribal village is one of the few places on earth where children are allowed to fully express their feelings....perhaps even their birth feelings when they are strong enough to feel them (three or four years old?)
Deleteor maybe the mothers in that village are allowed to squat down to give birth, just as my cousin did until she was forced into a different position.
I like the way he writes, too. art
DeleteJimRM
DeleteMany things, even other universes are discovered, because science is eagerly looking for.
To look at something that is very close to a deep and painful feeling, must be shoved into another galaxy.
For my work I had to watch again a movie that has original documentary film as an ending, that is so shocking that most of the people can’t finish watching (had to stop 4 times). Nevertheless it is a reality and for this reason avoided.
Nobody, no researcher has ever analyzed who or what created these psychopathic monsters who massacred (1941) in “Babij Jar”, in 10 hours nonstop, over 30 000 people and cold-bloodedly filmed the mass killing. After 10 hours these soldiers asked, are there more to kill?
What puzzled and intrigues me for years is, that nobody thought about that these mass murderers came back home and created families. My question to researchers would be, are there some of these psychopathic genes passed on to their offspring? But no university in the world was brave enough yet to look...why?
It is too painful.
Sieglinde
Sieglinde, you are so right. Art
DeleteSieglinde I agree that it is too painful for people to see but am still not convinced that genes are to blame. Happy to be convinced otherwise.
DeleteAlice Miller gives a great explanation in "For Your Own Good" about the reasons why her countrymen were able to kill so many. She suggests that child rearing books at the turn of the 19 Century centered around really horrific and brutal means of control. So the people who entered the war in 1939 were the major part of the people who tortured and killed the millions who died then. Children were wrapped in cloth and hung on hooks in the house and called things like "Shit Eaters". These people had no empathy shown to them early in life so why should they have any empathy for others later in life.
How much further is it from being into S and M and sexually dealing out pain and suffering to another person and both parties saying they enjoy it, to someone torturing and killing someone and laughing on a pile of heads. Not far I would have thought.
People have always looked for reasons why they are the way they are. Medieval scholars blamed the Devil for mental illness. The Victorians thought it was humors drifting through the air. Freud thought it was Drives. As science "progressed" it thought it was instinct and over the last 20 years it's been genes.
Recently an amateur English astronomer discovered a new habitable planet. He found it not by seeing the planet but by seeing that the Star it went round got slightly dimmer when the planet passed in front of it.
In the same way I would argue that for many of us before we see what is right in front of us( a brutal and unloving Parents) learnt not to see as it is less painful. We have to develop new ways of seeing. My Aunt is not her Father's daughter. She says she has only just discovered in her early sixties that her Mother had an affair with a Polish Jewish airman during the war. If she is right and she did not know why do all four of her children (born in the 60's and 70's have classic jewish biblical names?
I have found that if I mention people like Freud on this blog my piece does not often appear. I don't support his drives at all. I think the difference between say Dr Janov and Alice Miller who both seem to look at the real truth, people like Freud stopped looking for the real truth (though he got near to it with his Trauma theory) because it was too painful. Jung couched everything in booga booga as Dr Janov calls it. R D Laing who is feted in the UK as one of the great radicals of physcology and physciatry tried to see the truth but in the end could not. He got near but again avoided the pain probably because he had no-one who could support him in his journey of self discovery. As the most radical explorer who could he turn too.
I think that many researchers cannot see because they learned not to see as children. They learned to see lies as the truth. Also when one starts to unravel one's own internal knots one unsettles others around one. This is Miller's theory as to why Freud developed his Drive theories. He was a lone explorer with no-one else to really support him and middle class victorian society was happily lying to itself about the abuse going on and so he found himself ostracised for suggesting that it was abuse and trauma that caused peoples problems. Dr Janov talks about the imprint or primal scene that drives a person to all kinds of obsessions and rightly holds the parent responsible for that pain (whether they are aware of it or not). Freud blamed the victim i.e. the child and described inherited drives as the reason for the person's problems. That is why Freud still holds sway sadly I would argue and why many researchers cannot start to see the real truth of abuse and trauma.
I worry that suggesting genes are to blame is just the same as saying Drives are. It’s a way of avoiding dealing with the brutal truth of child rearing in our society.
Planespotter said >> I worry that suggesting genes are to blame is just the same as saying Drives are. It’s a way of avoiding dealing with the brutal truth of child rearing in our society.
DeleteMe >> Ah, the blame game. Everyone loves something or someone to blame, only as long as it is not themselves. Some even blame past primal injuries and subsequent pain for all their present suffering, as if they were doing nothing wrong in the present at all. Innocent as doves, you know. So the pain they feel is assumed to be all past pain. This relives them of looking at themselves in the present and finding cause for legitimate guilt in the present.
I am in no way pointing at you, Planespotter. But making the point that even legitimate primal pain can be used as an excuse to ignore what we do to aggravate situations that set off and make our present situations worse and bring up the old pain with it. If we fixed the present, at least we would not be touching off the past as much and causing that great pain of the past to haunt us again.
Too often, I think personal examination is avoided because we all seek to protect our delicate and often vain and inflated egos. It is bad enough that we suffered in the past and have it buried in side us. But to add to it by making our lives more difficult without good reason, just makes no sense.
I still say the biggest problem of those who suffer from primal pain and know about primal pain is that they do not want to face themselves and fault themselves and then change their actions to be less detrimental. Oh, but I’m just being “cognitive.” It’s a great cop out. Some people make excuses while others make changes. It really is that simple.
Hi Marco,
ReplyDeleteAnonymousJan 21, 2012 01:42 PM
Hi Paul, thanks for your comment. Well at least I don't live in a violent neighborhood, which must be worse for kids. On the other hand, this verbally abusive "mother" I refer to is definitely of the yuppie bourgeoisie (French from France variation),so the kid is not only getting hated, she is getting mind-fucked with middle class rationalisations and moralistic garbage. And as Janov points out, it sometimes seems to be easier to get through to working class types because ,with them, it it straight to the point. Or am I being patronising saying that ?
Well Marco, trying not to be too satirical, ironic or downright sarcastic all I can say is that either side of the 'white trash' abusive mother screaming at her half Jamaican 4ry old son are two nice middle class women who 'look the other way and say;
-"Oh, if it bothers you just call the social services". . .
Certainly in the English Class system the More Educated Members of the Matriarchy let the abusive mothers abuse the little boys more than the little girls and most of all the 'coloureds' who are of course hated by both races as well as their 'white trash' mothers.
I could go on.
Paul G.
Hi All,
ReplyDelete-"I am not the victim of my past but the Creator of my reality"-
Well, I have resisted 'going to town' on anything any of us regular contributors have posted but somehow I feel the time is ripe for:
-"JUDGEMENT DAY"- About this one.
Oh dear, Oh dear, Oh dear. Here we go again with that old 'spiritual self realisation' mantra.
In this little timeless 'ejaculation of ego' there are three distinct nubs or 'hubris'.
1. -"I am not a Victim"-. . . .
2. -"I am a Creator"-. . . .
3. -"Reality is My possession and therefore always personal". . . .
Ok, did you guys and gals watch the video? I did. . . Look, let's cut to the chase, just look at the weird stare in this guys' eyes. Also, the doc listening and responding. . . well, there's the 'hypnotic' message being delivered and the 'professional' recipient 're-framing' the message so that we mere mortal, yet to be enlightened, needlessly suffering prols can believe in what doc affirms from the 'spiritual master'. . . .
If you believe this you will be cured? No, only the nutter giving the message believes this shit and the doc listening is an actor, he may be a doc but he is an actor first.
The message is devoid of feeling and entirely wrapped in a cognitive skin of 'future possibility'. Certain exercises, certain 'cognitive re-organisations', certain 'clever cerebral brain tricks. . . Clever Brain Tricks. CBT.
This stuff is very useful to the Intellectuals who already have defences built around the same philosophical framework, namely that you can keep on "Changing your Mind to avoid Pain". Intellectual adaption, those plebs are just too stupid etc.
Jesus Christ! So we can change our minds? Wow, as long as we can keep on changing our minds we can keep on re-inventing new ways to avoid the truth of our condition and shifting the responsibility for ever having to relate with any-one in touch with their true feelings because NOBODY WHO WANTS REAL FEELINGS WANTS TO BE ANY WHERE NEAR THESE EMOTIONAL COLD FISH WITH PSEUDO EMOTIONAL RELATIONS.
What a load of shite these 'head cases' get away with!
Paul G.
I read your post with amusement and I know what you are reacting to. The older glassy eyed guy is a little hard to take. But I have found this in life. Not all communicate in the same way or expressions. Some use that self help sort of new age stuff, some like religious metaphors, some like clinical science type language or academic style. Indians love to use bears, wolves, eagles, crows, animals in general, it seems to me.
DeleteBut if you want to try to reach someone, it might help to speak the language of their choosing. And if you boil down all the language, they are simply trying to look at life in the most constructive and productive way. They do not want to let pain ruin their lives. They do not know what you or I know, but they refuse to be victims and make excuses for continuing to be A$$holes as many prefer.
I consider that a good thing. It would be nice if they could avoid the glassy eyes look, for sure. But to look at our selves and contemplate out conduct, reactions and actions? I think that is a step in the right direction. That is how I found PT!
True, they are not feeling their pain. But they are trying to avoid letting the pain rule their lives and make them do shameful things. I would like to see them broaden their view and jump outside their preferred paradigm/language/thought patters. But its better than nothing. I really think so.
I still marvel at the changes in you. I like them. Perhaps, just a little bit more caution in letting feelings fly. There is a time and place for it, for sure, but maybe also a time to avoid it, at times, or just tone it down slightly. Just a thought.
To all about Researchers
ReplyDeleteFor years I thought only the neglected and the abused are in denial. But I had to bury my childlike notions that researchers remain unbiased and subject focused.
Painfully, over the last 10 years, I found out that there are too many blind, agenda/fame driven and stubborn researchers out there. So I became sensitive, less hopeful and take most of the research with a grain of salt.
About 3 years ago I suggested that all psoriasis patients receive a cortisol test. My suggestion was dismissed/ignored without explanation.
Just one example: Bruce Bebo, PhD is the Director of Research and Medical Programs for the National Psoriasis Foundation has all the international studies available, but he cannot make the connection to the methylation and the interleukin-36Ra, an antiinflammatory cytokine. His focus for “curing” psoriasis remains on topical ointments (he works with a German pharmaceutical company to develop topical treatments for psoriasis). I wonder if he will understand the details described in LBB or is willing to accept that the set-point, the altered switch in a genome, needs to be found and reset through JPT instead for focusing on allopathic, topical treatments.
My conclusion: we need to educate the educators, help lifting the fog of one-sidedness and provide the idea that everything in a human body is connected and one damaged isolated component effects the whole being.
I’m getting slightly impatient with all the scientific fame-seeking people, while the overwhelming numbers of people worldwide suffer. I think all researchers need to sit face to face on one table, share their findings and move on.
Sieglinde
Email reply: "Sieglinde is right; researchers are laden with a publish-or-perish ego-driven agenda. As one ex-researcher told me, the currency of the world is money; the currency of academia is ego morsels.
DeleteBut let's give Dr. Bebo the benefit of a doubt. Epigenetics research is still new and he may not be aware of the epigenetic link. This is especially true of clinicians who are usually not aware of the basic research. This stuff has yet to go through preclinical trials before it reaches human trials. I'm having a hell of a time finding good human studies. As yet, they don't exist.
Sieglinde may be interested in this study, published just last September: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21923658 The epigenetics link isn't yet establishe with certainty, thus the cautionary note, "epigenetic mechanisms may also be involved..."
Things move slowly in science, especially in the clinical area. It'll take a decade or more before the full impact of epigenetics is felt.
Bruce"
Whose to say that many of the researchers probably being left Brained are in denial of their own early trauma and thus much of the research is biased towards finding some alternative unreal answer. I would argue that it is the majority of people who are hurt and abused. Those who recognise that they were are on the way to recovery.
DeleteAs an aside Radio 4 in the Uk reported that heart attacks in the UK have been almost halved in a decade. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9038393/Heart-attack-deaths-halve-in-a-decade-research.html
Did any of these researchers consider the changes in how people interact. A few months ago Thinking Aloud in the UK discussed the phenomenon of kissing men (ie men more able to show affection to each other without the fear of homosexual taunts) and also the decline of violence. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016lggg In none of these topics was mentioned the part how childhood brings about these changes. Men more able to share feelings than they were so less prone to heart attacks and violence declining perhaps because few children are beaten to the extent they were.
Researchers do not dare look to their past for fear of what they might see.
So long as Society denies the cruelty visited on the vast majority of children (in the name of good parenting) then many issues remain taboo because anyone who starts talking about it is labeled as crazy. Just look at Anderson's "The Kings New Clothes" where a whole nation all pretend to admire the naked Kings clothes as he parades through the streets until one little Boy with the honesty of a child shouts "He's Naked" and slowly a few people in the crowd join him until everyone is shouting "He's naked'. There are few in the Physcology world brave enough to shout "he's naked" at the status quo. Primal Therapy is one.
Hi Bruce,
DeleteThanks for the link. I appreciate the information.
30 years ago I told a dermatologist that I believe psoriasis is an outward sign for an unrecognized inside pain. He laughed, although he acknowledged that I have a low cortisol level.
I don’t think that science moves slowly: look how much science has been discovered in the last twenty years. If the ones who could make a difference would just apply what science provides, we would be a big step beyond where we are now.
Anytime I watch nature animal movies (there hundreds of films available) I think, if we just could bring science to the people, in the same understandable form, we could bring more awareness to individuals. What a different we could make with a movies of “Life before Birth”. How many mothers-to-be could learn and then feel what they must do to protect their unborn and, learn of how much she herself was deprived of as an infant. Just yesterday, a woman who read just the LBB book cover, said “oh my god this is what I experienced…” then she became very sad and said “I was totally disconnected from my child after birth – I had no feeling for her.” I wish I known all this 40 years ago.
But I know for sure that even what we know from science today is hindered by government’s from being implemented.
When the Round Table (a commission of truth)in Germany began its work, investigating the abuse of 800 000 abused children in German orphanages and institutions between 1949 - 1975, I provided all available scientific evidence that the victims suffered from the abuse. I pointed out the emotional and cognitive developmental problems in newborns who were isolated in their cribs up to one year.
I recommended to the Round Table that Dr. Janov be invited to speak on the subject. I was so very naïve, because I believed the German government was interested to help the living victims. I had to learn that the government was only interested in “damage control”.
As a painful hindsight I can state with certainty, the German government has betrayed the same victims they have helped create. Now they are only interested in saving money and shove the subject as quickly as possible out of the public eye.
After four years of fighting for the truth and for the ones who still suffer from their horrible experience the Government decided on Jan 2. 2012 that these victims are entitled to cognitive therapy and some lesser crumbs (a new TV, or a vacation etc.) from the government democratic table. The now available “help” should not exceed more than a total of 10 000 Euro.
Listen to the victims who say, “I don’t need more therapy, because the therapy I had did not work”. I understand when they choose material things.
Sieglinde
So ... "Who needs love"? A question motivated in the process for what lovelessness has caused. First we need to be “aware” that we suffer before we can start our journey to feel our need of love. Can love be given to someone who is afraid of love... love that heals wounds for what lovelessness have caused? This falls on its own impossibility. Love that we fear... cannot heal apart from the process we fear love.
ReplyDeleteSuffering indicates the need of love… and in that process we will feel the need of love. So...we need to get back to the need... the need for love before we can be aware of the impact of not getting it.
To feel the need of love is painless… it’s the love that not was given and that are healing.
Frank
Frank: a really good question, can you give love to someone afraid of love? We need to first get to feeling unloved; that is the reality. art
ReplyDeleteHi All,
ReplyDelete-"Frank: a really good question, can you give love to someone afraid of love? We need to first get to feeling unloved; that is the reality. art"-
Oh this is such an important question because denial of the unmet need so often rushes back to protect from the original loss.
Paul G.
Hi Art, I responded to both Richard and Paul earlier, they directly addressed me. Any reason my replies haven't been posted?
ReplyDeleteThanks (and hope your throat is ok), Jacquie
An email comment: "Dear my Shidoshis,
ReplyDeleteYour real Legacy is LOVE for planet Earth,your's most important Book is those which we can read from our own bodies,Life newer stops to write and Primal Therapy is Reading School,I want to go to School so much.In this moment I "read" at home,it's nice..How we can measure someones neurosis?-how much he(she) is able to be grateful to real friends..I don't have real love for my parents,so when I want to say how much I love Art and France,old primal feelings wrothed in my body makes noise and resistance-"You give them all your love and respect and don't take anything back.."That is Psychological Mass and puts me on one place,to newer be open,newer gentle and sensual for other human beings who needs love and respect and be treated carefully,too.Well,despite all that conservative, life- killing ,"take care" attitude in me I must say "I love you so,so so,much.People,you are genius, human kind can breath thanks to you".All company in my soul:"Tiger and Dolphin and Deer and Eagle" wants only one-to come in LA,go throe Pr.Th.,TO SEE OCEAN,Great America,learn everything from you,kiss most beautiful girls in the world,work,fight and..BEE FREE!!Yea.. Kiss.
p.s. I'm member of Liberal Democratic Party here in Serbia and we try to make land for our people,no meter nationality,religion,gay or straight,we fight here for Human Dignity, Democracy,we want modern and happy and powerful Serbia-Learn,Work,Love!!:-)
LDP-Let's Do it Perfect!!-it's my parole:-)"
I love your idea of reading our own body and that my therapy is a reading school. Once you get connected to yourself you can read your body. art
DeleteTo all:
ReplyDeleteSo Who Needs More Love?
The simple answer is, - the one who didn’t got enough.
My question, WYH a child is not getting the love it deserves. Why mothers are so disconnected from their children? The answer: It is the neuro-gen-psychological damage mothers caring with them.
Loving and respecting a child in more “primitive” cultures still exist. Why? - they were loved when they were children.
“A Pygmy Model for Partnership Relations” by Ushanda io Elima
http://www.aaacworld.org/publication/art_ush11.htm
Sieglinde
Just read the Pygmy Model for partnership Relations. Amazing.
ReplyDeleteThough where did the Pygmy husband and wife learn to threaten each other with big sticks and clubs? The sceptic in me tends to think that many ancient tribes are held up as great examples of the true nature of man.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the true nature of man? After all we are still evolving.
Planespotter: I will write a piece on the true nature of man soon. art
DeleteHi Dr Janov. I look forward to it.
DeleteHi Planespotter
Deleteyou will find a good description in of the "Primal Man": The new consciousness, by Arthur Janov and E. Michael Holden (1975)
Sieglinde
Sieglinde, wow I am not sure I have a copy. We wrote it 40 years ago, my dear colleague Holden. art
DeleteLooks like there are a few second hand one's on Amazon.com
DeleteHi planespotter, I just had a look at the Pigmy essay. I cried most of the way through it then I laughed out loud at that bit.
ReplyDeleteIt's ironic humour isn't it?
Hey, when we get into straits with our loved ones we forget who we are. To be reminded of who we are we need trusted people to empathise with our current mood. By humorously acknowledging the potential to escalate the 'boundary infringement' the friends of each party are helping every-one to own the excessive mood of the would be 'combatants'.
One of the problems of the elitist system I went through is that these 'techniques for breaking down barriers' were used in an authoritarian system with neurotic mother fixated exiles. . . I digress.
These Ironic Techniques can't work on wounded people. Well they could, if we could find ways to restore the extended family system.
(Which is not the same as the 'old school tie network').
If, IF we could find a way to restore the extended family system then we could learn and teach many things like this to our children and even to recovering adults like ourselves. There have been many, many attempts in the last 100 years to restore working models and the history of it is encouraging. Committed groups have restored this level of trust. Even us neurotics can do it. We don't need Mr. (or Mrs.) God either.
Paul G.
Hi Paul G
DeleteI take your point and I know that Dr Janov states that violence can be caused in the womb. I worked in Taiwan about ten years ago in the ceramics industry. I took some small Wedgewood jugs and presents and handed them out at various meetings. What was fascinating was the look of bemusement on the recipients faces. These people worked with clay all the time and yet these little products were alien to them. "What are they" I was asked and I explained and smiles of recognition appeared. The Chinese don't use jugs. They use bowls. We use what we know in other words.
If people are treated with respect in childhood by their parents and see their parents treat each other with respect and sort out problems (even if exasperated with each other) using good language that can explain and express deep emotions carefully and thoughtfully to another person who has empathy for the other person why should either Parent need to brandish clubs? Thus why would they need other empathic people to step in. It struck me that in some ways the other members of the tribe were humiliating the two people with sarcasm and irony which does not strike me as empathic.
As aside it states that everyone dies of either trees falling on them or heart attacks due to the humidity. Maybe this tribe is a right Brain biased tribe due to how they interact?
There is another African tribe and I can't remember the name who are held up as great examples of interaction etc and the article I read was illustrated with a proud woman's face with three deep scars below her eyes. The wounds were added so that the salt in her tears would sting and teach her not to cry! Need I say more.
Maybe we are the crazy Ape forced out of the Jungle onto the seashore where we ate seafood and grew our crazy Brain? Perhaps our very intelligence is partly to do with being crazy. Perhaps physcopaths developed great intelligence (which I gather that some have) because they needed to outwit their persecutors and win them over rather than be hurt again. It would seem to fit with the notion that they are very manipulative and cunning often and able to act to get their way. The fact that past Centuries have seen the crazies ruling countries and becoming the elite and thus somehow intelligence grew as part of centuries of brutal child rearing. Empathy was lost in exchange for intelligence born of suffering. Look at the UK. A nation of inventors and shop keepers and the stiff upper lip. Drug fueled Viking Invaders, Physcotic Norman's, Celts, Picts and Angles. Wave after wave of violent invasion. Centuries of disconnected Corpus Callum (wrong spelling). Dark Satanic Mills, the darkness of Dickens etc etc. Where is the true human on this little island? How much real love gets dished out here. Our governments love the idea of "tough love", in other words if it's not hurting then it's not doing us any good just like Mummy and Daddy brought up the Elite and just about everyone else.
Maybe our next evolutionary step is to actually become truly sane?
Hi Jacquie,
ReplyDelete-"again, evolution weeding out those unloved, as cruel as that sounds.
Jxx"-
Excuse me but what was going through your mind when you wrote this? Also:
-"Hi Paul
I'm sorry if I've inadvertently offended you, no offence intended, this is not personal"-
Jacquie, I am not at all offended by you or your words, why should I take what you say personally? Nevertheless, I am extremely curious and perplexed by the way your words appear to 'reason'. Also:
-"I'm sorry you were institutionalised, and I'm glad you've found this blog/Primal".
Look, please don't feel sorry for me, what about your true self Jacquie, what about the little Jacquie whos' parents separated? Who gets migraines and who has to face child abuse at work?
Try to take care of your true self before you start 'feeling sorry' for others, and I mean that most sincerely folks. . . .
Paul G.
Years ago one of my staff said that suicide was logical given a ruined life. What do you all think? Art
DeleteOh, what a juicy question. Deep and challenging. Lets consider this. If you look back and see nothing but pain and no joy and see no prospect of any real change in the future, what hope or incentive is there to go on? This is a purely logical analysis. Bu we are not purely logical. We have that drive/will to live, against almost any odds. That makes us keep going when logic would suggest it is not worth bothering.
DeleteIf there is no hope for the future, no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, then any sane person might say, game over! I am out of here!
I have often thought that suicide might be the result of the intellect finally winning out over irrational desire to live or keep struggling. My brother was a possible suicide. But his parents made him think he was the only thing that mattered and he was great just because he was him. His ego went sky high. But when he could not live up to that image, he drank till he died. He had messed his life up so bad there was no point in continuing. I agree with his conclusion. He never asked but I read behind the lines. He was in TX anyway and I was in ME.
I know the theory that pain makes people kill themselves. Indeed, sometimes that may be the case. I am not so sure it is always the case. Hope is a funny thing. Hope can be quite reasonable or it can be completely irrational. How do we know which one it is?
Obviously love could make quite a difference, but love is a very rare commodity. I don’t spend much time worrying about it, since I have purposes and plans and a hope, too, to boot, huh? Love can wait or even got to hell for I care. It can often be an irrational hope.
Either one can find true legitimate hope or one that you can run after to make you keep going. The only (3rd) option left is to forget about hope. Then we advance to purpose and plans. But here is the strange thing about it all. No matter how you slice it, it does come down to one of those basic questions we all struggle with once in a while. Was life an accident or was it by purpose and intention?
I say that if one concludes it is an accident, then you can pretty much forget about purpose and meaning. If not an accident, then what the hell caused it and why?
I offer this one warning. And you can laugh all you want. Hey, I always wanted to be a successful comedian. But in not too much more time, those is very high political places are going to put on a show and say aliens did it and now they have come back to save us. Beware of false messiahs and liars and poorly written scripts, too ;-)
And don’t nobody give me any of that pain bull$h!T. Address my logic. Where did I go wrong in my chain of thoughts? Try and answer that, please, if you can and dare!
One of my cousins has tried to kill himself twice though not very well. More a cry for help than anything else. I have felt suicidal at times. Perhaps the pain of slitting one's wrists becomes less than the wall of pain facing one. Perhaps it is an attempt to get back to the safer darkness and unconcious warmth of the womb?
DeletePerhaps it is simply the person wanting to stay who they know themselves to be and in a society where we are all told who we should be rather being respected for who we are then to kill oneself is to powerfully make a statement about being oneself and in control of oneself. A friend who works in social services told me that many suicide notes of teenagers who have killed themselves tend to say that they just want to be themselves when they are being forced to be who their Parents, teachers and schools want them to be.
Hi Planespotter,
ReplyDeleteI reckon we should abolish the royal family because as long as this "Authoritarian" system of "Symbolic Rule" continues to influence the British Culture (& THEREFORE GLOBAL CULTURE) it intrinsically supports wilful cognitive abuse of children as both 'incentive' and 'disincentive'.
Do you get it? It is a torture regime whereby the abused abuse the abusers and each 'layer' each 'class' each 'sibling' in the hierarchy feels powerful and in charge of themselves because they are following a symbolic act out of HUMILIATION / REVENGE.
AS ABOVE, SO BELOW. . . It never did me any harm. . . SMACK!!!!!!
I rest my case.
Paul G.
Hi Planespotter and all,
ReplyDeleteSmall children do not understand the difference between 'Irony' and 'Sarcasm'.
How could they when their reasoning function has not yet formed beyond the gratification of basic need. Therefore small children should be saved from complex conflicts in the family, group, village.
As adults I have found the ironic perceptions of my peers has saved my life from ruin and my friends from my vindictive sarcasm.
Generally speaking Irony is the sharing of difficult contradictions. I feel & think I'm doing the right thing teaching my 9yr old daughter Ironic humour, she's getting the hang of it and it helps her deal with the contradictions in life, helps her grow out of her own simplistic narcissism . Irony is part of Satire. To be able to be satirical (without the vengeance or sarcasm) is a real human achievement and helps steer us toward true feelings though the maze of human intellectualism.
Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit; controlling bastards with a lot of pain use it to put other people down. I used to be a sarcastic bastard because my Dad is a sarcastic bastard. . . .
He still mistakes my Ironic humour as sarcasm aimed at him (or his Kissenger like belief system). My Dad is still stuck at the narcissistic stage where words ARE meaning and whoever can WIN the argument is the BEST person. . .
Paul G.
I have always thought humor was important to survival and sanity. Irony is good. Sarcasm is hard to resist at times. I think it is merited at times. Its not just controlling bastards who use it. You mention your dad tries to win arguments, I assume, whether right or wrong does not matter to him.
DeleteMy father is interesting because first he decided whether he wants or likes something or not, then minimize it or maximize it to justify it. That is, if he wants to do it, then he tries his best to justify it, and could care less whether it makes sense or not. If he does not like or want it, then he tries to condemn it as best as he can. He is a sophist, though not a very good one. He is not sharp witted.
But I find many really only care about self justification, not objective (and often painful) truth. Objective truth requires a certain amount of courage and willingness to plunge a dagger into ones own ego. Almost no one wants to do that, right? But I do feel that whether we feel primal pains or not, we still need to examine the left over “beliefs” and ideas about life and ourselves to see if they can stand objectively through reason and analysis rather than through justification, right or wrong.
I get your point about irony. It's still not honest is it? I feel it's still the avoidance of actual honesty. Is'nt PT about real honesty. The other people in the tribe saying "Go on hit her etc" to the husband are avoiding the fact that the argument has got as far as it can and ended with threatening with sticks etc and where did that come from. As a species we learned to speak to try to help our communications beyond facial expressions, body language etc and probably due to the larger numbers we mix with I suppose. If we can't express feelings to the closest person to us and them have empathy for us even when we are saying difficult things for the other person to hear then language etc is not working which quite obviously is the case in the tribe and therefore feelings are not understood either so something must be wrong.
DeleteHi,
ReplyDelete-"Years ago one of my staff said that suicide was logical given a ruined life. What do you all think? Art
If I remember correctly, in an earlier contribution Tony Riley tentatively pointed out that Primal is no picnic. . . he mentioned having to deal with suicidal feelings and fantasies.
Feeling like dying. . . I struggle with this one, it's birth and/or gestational trauma coming up through limbic to my intellect. BUT (and this is the big BUT) because I know PRIMAL THEORY, I no longer "believe" in the "Logical Conclusion of my Ruined Life".
Which just goes to prove how important Primal Theory is for 'Logic' (and life, if, IF you want a life).
Nevertheless you can't reason your way out of a suicidal feeling or thought. Better, much better to sit down quietly, safely and find the point at which you can let it all go. Break down and cry it out.
Paul G.
paul, it's impossible to cry when you are overwhelmed by a first-line feeling. each rush of hopelessness hits hard and can make you hunch over and vomit (i'm not talking about a primal...i'm just talking about a really bad day). it's mind-blowing despair. the feeling is not caused by your present-day problems - most people's adult lives are not that bad. it is a feeling from the past. without a reality-based intellect, suicidal people may see death as the only real option. there are times when breaking down is not the right thing to do. it's important to remember where that feeling is coming from (the past) and to look forward, when you can, and find the little things that provide some kind of real or neurotic reward. being super-intellectual is ok if it stops you from plummeting into despair, but it's not ok if it stops you from getting to the primal center.
DeleteRichard:
DeleteI couldn't say it better myself. art
Hi Richard & Art,
ReplyDelete-"most people's adult lives are not that bad. it is a feeling from the past. without a reality-based intellect, suicidal people may see death as the only real option. there are times when breaking down is not the right thing to do. it's important to remember where that feeling is coming from (the past) and to look forward, when you can, and find the little things that provide some kind of real or neurotic reward".
Words fail me. But they don't fail you Richard. Often what you say here on this site has tipped the edge of my particular despair back to life. It's too personal for me to say here on this blog, maybe I havn't found the right words yet, but I sure know the feelings. Rest assured that this 'old intellect' has and continues to know the feelings. You are a good writer Richard, maybe one day we'll meet. Take care of yourself and please carry on writing.
Regards, Paul G.
Hi planespotter,
ReplyDelete-"I get your point about irony. It's still not honest is it"-?
I feel children should not be exposed to Irony because they could not understand it. Once the repression in us has become concreted that's another matter. . . Well, the thing about conflict amongst adults is that the point of it must be hard. This is not semantics. We become hardened and this shows in relationships. Irony is a third line skill. Like Zeroxat, LSD, Cannanbis or any other drug that adults take to ameliorate their "hardened" condition the conflicts and the contradictions still exist. . .
As adults, as third liners, needing to cope, we need this "Sophistication". We need to be able to express our conflicts through a dichotomy, a parallax, a paradox.
Conflicts happen.
My Dad uses conflicts to put minions down. Parents can be so very exploitative this way as to prevent their offspring ever consolidating adult friendships in their offspring. Thus their children become isolated and intellectualised as a way to maintain the possibility, the (false) hope in their offspring. This way us "Sons" become slaves to our fathers' repression. I feel and intuit epigenetics demonstrates, shows the truth of this.
Irony is a "Lay" expression of the scientific facts.
Paul G.
Hi Richard,
ReplyDeleteSome days I am overwhelmed with first line 'crushing' despair and my physical symptoms leave me 'unemployable' for hours or days after. I can barely make it into my car before the 2nd line resonance starts (sometimes very intense 'murderous rage').
I do know what you mean. I get coughing fits, the shits and very intense dissociation. I get a whole load of other symptoms too which are just too personal to reveal here.
Like planespotter, I am extremely fortunate I have a self employed occupation that (to an extent) allows me the freedom to collapse as it happens but I also know what it's like to be in a totally inappropriate situation. . . My profession, carpentry still doesn't pay the bills yet and I'm going into debt (it's still a construction recession); but it sure does offer the 'super intellectualism' I need to stave off the worst of these 'bouts' of mine. Having a trade that involves design as well as fabrication offers some satisfaction and sense of fulfilment due to having exercised very many different parts of the brain as each project progresses.
I recommend self employment and the traditional trades and crafts as a serious palliative for Primal people. In my "Island" community of 60 families we would all be helping the 100 or so children learn as many of them from as soon as they want to pick up the tools.
Paul G.