Friday, February 24, 2012

Skipping Steps The Untoward Consequences of Cross-Dominance (Part 1/4)

Below you will find a 4-piece story of Frank. He has had a horrific history, which he explains very well and it shows the primal process clearly. My discovery of what was wrong in his brain goes again to reinforce the necessity for a rounded education for all psychologists. We need to understand so much of the human system, its biology and neurology apart from how to do the therapy. It took 72 years of his life for this diagnosis, which has radically changed his life in every respect. You will now read how that happened. 
 Dr. Janov




This might be the most difficult essay I have ever done. What I’m attempting to present here is all but ineffable for me. I suffer from cross-dominance, and I’m in the process of trying to ameliorate its effects on my life. I find it difficult to describe a dialectic process when I’m in the middle of it. So far this has fallen out to be a very difficult blessing. I am going through so many, and such rapid changes that at times I feel like I’m living in a cement mixer. Fortunately, the changes are for the good, even though being in a face-off with myself is somewhat excruciating. My life is currently the best it has ever been. Throughout, however, it has been the curse of Sisyphus, rolling that big rock up the hill only to have it come crashing down again, leaving me broken. And, I still must say, at this young and tender age of 72, should I croak tomorrow, my epitaph would read: It Wasn’t Worth It!
But since I’m here, the rest of my life is worth it. I continue to relive the pain of my life in order to reap the resulting benefits, relief, and relaxation. I’ve been at the Primal Center for over 6 years, and in countless ways it has changed my life. I came to the Center expecting to die soon. Primal Therapy was the last thing on my bucket list. But after a year or so, I realized that my life had just begun. And it’s a new life, a good life full of zest. I decided to apply to graduate school and on my 69th birthday I began. Now graduated, I’m an intern at the Center.
Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! Primal training opens up a whole new realm with demands that require a new depth of integration. And I soon found out something was really wrong with me. It is very clear to see from the outside, but I am on the inside. It interferes with my capacity to do good therapy. Watching me in the videos of our trainings is a shock. Art said, “You know, this guy’s brilliant but you’d never know it to talk with him.” Then one day at staff meeting, Art said to me, “Aim at me as though you have a rifle in your hands. I did, and Art responded, “I knew it. You are cross-dominant!
What the hell is that? I’d never heard of it (and I have an MS in clinical psych). Simply put it means, that I’m right handed and left eyed. I’m also left eared and right legged. Art told me to start researching it. It turns out that there are a lot of people quite concerned with this seemingly minor anomaly. So I read on.
Curiouser and curiouser. They were describing me. One researcher wrote this:
“When my inattentive son had his vision therapy evaluation the optometrist found that he was left eyed and left eared but right footed and right handed. The optometrist reported that this explained the following symptoms:
* A tendency to misplace objects in his personal space
* A tendency to rotate his papers strangely when writing
* A tendency to tip his head 40 degrees when writing
* Difficulty with left and right side of letters ("Mommy is this the way the letter 'P' goes??")
* Difficulty making decisions
* Poor handwriting
* Difficulty with Organization
* Difficulty with gross and fine motor movements
* Learning difficulties
* Difficulties performing task that cross the body midline”

I have the same dominance problem as the boy and all those things apply to me along with a host of others that I’ll address along the way. I found out they have treatments for it – exercises to reverse the dominance of the eyes. Boom! That sinking feeling in my stomach grabbed me. I’m left eye dominant because it’s the only one I have. My right eye is plastic. Just before my 11th birthday, my brother shot me in the eye with a bow and arrow. So I must remain left eye dominant, and I certainly don’t have any interest in switching the dominance of my hands.
Unfortunately, cross-dominance is not quite as simple as my description. It is really a case of neurological disorganization that causes both input and output to come and go through a maze of pathways that can get mixed up. It probably goes all the way back to the womb. Testing for it best begins with the infant and the way he crawls (cross-crawl or homolateral crawl). If the crawl is homolateral, it indicates disorganization in the Pons. ( The Pons primary function seems to be one of integrating signals from the cerebrum to the cerebellum and sending them to the proper parts of the body. It is the first level at which cross or mixed dominance occurs. The Pons are also involved in breathing and sleep regulation. ) Then when the child is creeping on his hands and knees, the same test can be used to test for disorganization in the Limbic System. Of course none of that is of use to me here. No test back then and I had parents that made it very clear to me that all my weirdness was of my own making and completely my fault. Another important factor is that it can go unnoticed until the person is under stress.
The first indication of my neurological disorganization is that I can never tell my left from my right without stopping to think. Usually, if I’m given information that something is on one side or the other, I write my name in the air. (I write with my right hand.) And speaking of writing: Most people’s handwriting slants forward, or backward, or straight up and down. My handwriting, which seems to abide many contrarian masters, does all of the above within the compass of any single word. The order of letters in each word is also constantly mixed up. I am likely to put the last syllable of a word in the middle. I also mix up the order of words in a sentence. As I write this, my backspace key is the most active key on my keyboard. Moving the mouse with any precision is also very difficult for me. I have little power over my finger’s clicking or double clicking. This same disorganization also affects my capacity to read. I made it through graduate school using audiobooks. And if Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic didn’t have the book, I would scan it into my computer with my OCR, then convert it into audio, and then listen to the computer voice read my books as I read along visually.
Worse for me than all of this, is my speech – worse because I don’t have a backspace key for my mouth. I can’t unsay what I’ve said. I can only look more foolish trying to recover and get it right. I have long referred to myself as being fumble-mouthed. I lose words in the middle of a sentence. I hesitate and search and use the wrong words, lose my place in the sentence, forget what I’m saying, and when people answer, I often realize that what I thought I said is not what they heard. Hence, I am constantly qualifying and requalifying and re-requalifying what I say. Frequently, my mind goes blank, when asked a question. I’m often so busy inside my head, trying to straighten things out, or scanning for the lost word, or distracted by something said that takes me down a whole different road, that I miss what is going on around me. When in college I would record my lectures so I could get what I missed when I got home. I should add that my cross-dominance problems arise or are exacerbated when I am even mildly stressed (which, of late, with training, is most of the time).
My dictionary defines the word bizarre as markedly unusual in appearance, style, or general character and often involving incongruous or unexpected elements; outrageously or whimsically strange or odd. That is a description of me. That’s how I write, think, and talk. It makes for a great sense of humor as well as creativity, but can be severely detrimental to the conduct of my daily life. The humor is my best defense and it has helped me out of many a fix, but then people have a hard time taking me seriously, when that is what I need.
Two books that I wrote paint a lucid picture (from different angles) of my hemispheric tragedy. You don’t have to read beyond the titles in order to see this. The first book is a group of satirical essays titled Swift Solutions! A Genteel and Ingenious Guide to Social Engineering Accrued from a Compilement of Newly Founded FRAGMENTS on Matters of Considerable Import, Written for the Universal Improvement of Mankind by Carkan Moil, A Man of Moderate Spleen And a Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Grandvotery of Jonathan Swift. This book clearly exposes my cross-dominant pathology. Since humor, satire, and irony seem to be right brain progeny, you might call it my right brain reaction to my left brain world that makes no sense to me. However, I like to think of it as calling the bluff of the left brainers. A second book, a novel, titled Tales of Tainted Mother’s Milk, Volume I: BOILS should give you a cryptic glimpse into both hemispheres of my blighted brain.
Added to this is a constant first line intrusion that makes my life a perpetual string of crises. Those about me are continually telling me to slow down, take it easy, pay close attention to what you are doing. It’s like I’m falling off a skyscraper with people at the window on each floor, yelling at me, “Slow down and it won’t hurt so much when you hit the street below.” This brings with it the problem of impulse control. When you are fighting for your life, it is difficult to wait your turn. And my process is struggle and fail. I’ve learned from reliving my birth that I struggle until I can’t do it anymore, and then give in to sweet death. In the meantime I live in chaos. I’m always trying to catch up as my environment becomes more and more disorganized. I’ve constantly got a hundred projects going that I’ve got to finish right now.
Directly connected to this is akenisia. It is a rolling, wrenching, jerking, weakening, anxious, helpless feeling in my guts and down my arms and legs, forcing me to move. I used to call them my gwizhy-gwizhy feelings. These feelings keep me from being able to sit still. It has me chewing my tongue constantly. So my current diagnosis is ADD, stealth Dyslexia continually reinforced and held in place by Cross-Dominance. This after 6 years of the best therapy in the world – UNFAIR! Worse for me, I have been living my life oblivious to most of it until recently. If you have no memory of being any other way, it seems normal. It reminds me of a passage from Robert Klane’s book, Where’s Poppa? There Louise tells Hocheiser why she broke up with her last boyfriend: They had beautiful sex and afterward she looks over and sees a big pile of feces in the bed. She says to her boyfriend, “You took a dump in my bed!?” and her boyfriend answers, “Doesn’t everybody?”
Art writes about the intellectual therapist who does therapy like a one trick pony. Well, unfortunately, I am a too tricked pony with all the mechanics of my internal motions gone awry. Most people lost in their left brains have no idea what it’s like to have access to feelings. But I have access on all three levels. I have great Primals with solid connections on all levels. I’m flooded with insights that continue to change my life moving it forward. Over these past few years I’d come to assume that I know myself and my defense system. And now this! I found out that there is a whole world of pain that I’ve yet to feel to get to the bottom of this, without a clue about how to deal with it, how to get to it, how to free myself from the devastation it brings to my life.

29 comments:

  1. Frank, have those books you wrote been published? I'd like to read them. I'm just in the middle of Gullivers Travels, so your Swift Solutions might be a good one to follow it with.

    Graham

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  2. Frank,
    What an inspiration. Thank you.
    You confirm my sequential thinking (what was, how it effects us and what are the final results) which I begun about 20 years ago and not finish yet; it’s my never ending quest for the WHY.
    I’m convinced life and everything else has a beginning, that produces results.
    Sieglinde

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  3. never heard of cross-dominance before. fascinating stuff. looking forward to the next three installments.

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  4. art, have you used research on laterality to develop your therapeutic techniques? what is the significance of your diagnosis of cross-dominance?
    handedness is determined in the womb. a left-handed fetus will bring it's left hand closer to it's mouth. in left-handed people, the incidence of right-hemisphere language dominance has been reported as 27% and 39%. so one must ask: what are the causes of brain lateralization or the lack of it? there seems to be very little research in this area.
    after a hemispherectomy, children generally display more neuroplasticity, allowing neurons from the remaining hemisphere to take over the tasks from the lost hemisphere.
    hmmmmm interesting.

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    1. Richard: OK I surrender. How do you know so much. In the case of Frank, his eye was shot out at a young age so it affected dominance. I think epigenetics accounts fo a lot of left handedness. But Obama is left handed and he is eloquent. In some kinds of brain damage to the left hemisphere the accountant stops and the right brain artist takes over. art

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    2. obama is eloquent? obama is a vain actor but how is his eloquence relevant to this conversation? and you needn't surrender. i wasn't attacking you. maybe you are right about the difference between the left and right hemispheres. this is from wikipedia:
      "Specialization of the two hemispheres is general in vertebrates including fish, frogs, reptiles, birds and mammals with the left hemisphere being specialized to categorize information and control everyday, routine behavior, with the right hemisphere responsible for responses to novel events and behavior in emergencies including the expression of intense emotions. An example of a routine left hemisphere behavior is feeding behavior whereas as a right hemisphere is escape from predators and attacks from conspecifics."

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  5. Hi,

    I completely identify with this account.

    I am known as 'left handed' so is my brother, so is my step son, so is my daughter. I keep meeting left handers. But, but, but a big But, I kick with my right foot sometimes and have a right eye dominance and I do other left / right things above and below waiste hight. including shifting beams in the workshop, ie: leading foot etc. Juggling and so-on. I am confused but I totally relate to what this guy is saying. Furthermore from my left/ right / bottomk / top conflicts I have unconventional insights about doing stuff. Mostly all profitable; IE: in so far as they offer 'alternatives'. "Vives les alternatives! Heureusements"!

    Paul G.

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  6. I had never heard of cross-dominance either. According to the almighty Wikipedia, "Cross-dominance, also known as mixed-handedness, mixed dominance, or hand-confusion, is a motor skill manifestation where a person favors one hand for some tasks and the other hand for others. For example, a cross-dominant person might write with the left hand but throw primarily with the right."

    Well, what do you know. I write with my left hand, but throw with my right. I do other things with my right hand as well, like use the computer mouse. With some other tasks I prefer my left hand again. I also kick better with my right foot.

    I also hadn't heard the terms "left-eye dominant" or "right-eye dominant" before. I can't see far with my left eye, but my right eye has good vision and compensates.

    I've never had troubles with this to the extent that Frank has, but I did identify with this 100%:

    "I have long referred to myself as being fumble-mouthed. I lose words in the middle of a sentence. I hesitate and search and use the wrong words, lose my place in the sentence, forget what I’m saying, and when people answer, I often realize that what I thought I said is not what they heard. Hence, I am constantly qualifying and requalifying and re-requalifying what I say. Frequently, my mind goes blank, when asked a question. I’m often so busy inside my head, trying to straighten things out, or scanning for the lost word, or distracted by something said that takes me down a whole different road, that I miss what is going on around me."

    ^^^That's me. I didn't start noticing it until I was a teenager though. It wasn't that bad at first, but it's gotten worse over the years. Years of heavy benzo use has also made it noticeably more difficult.

    Then again I don't speak much most of the time. I'm quiet even for a Finn, and that's saying something (is that a pun or a paradox?). I express myself better in writing, when I have time to think and edit. I don't know if I'm a "good" writer, but at least I'm not terrible at it.

    Will be looking forward to next 3 parts.

    Antti

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    1. Would ambidextrous also count. I find that while I am right handed I am able to swap work to my left hand rather than my right?

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    2. Planespotter: yes and confusion as well and difficulty in forming clear cohesive thoughts. Read more about Frank. art

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  7. To all:
    Right and left handedness can be force-changed.
    Until I was 6 years old I was left handed. Entering the first grade the left hand was tied to the back and we had to learn to write with the “good” hand (right hand). Left-handed people were considered ill-minded people. Until I was about 10 years old I was still secretly doing difficult (fine motor) things with the left hand.
    Today typing, my left hand is faster than my right hand. However I became right hand dominant.
    With enough force everything can be altered.
    Sieglinde

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  8. Hi Seiglinde,

    I don't know about German but in English the word 'sinister' comes from the Latin for Left.
    The word 'dexterous' comes from the Latin for Right.

    Why are left handed people considered sinister and right handed people considered dexterous?

    Maybe the people who make up the rules are really only capable of juggling words to gain the higher, moral ground? CLERICS. Can read and write but have no original thoughts or insights.

    As Art has brilliantly described maybe they have "no inner life" and therefore no genuine scruples. My feelings are that a lot of left handed people (or cross dominant, or ambidextrous) are able to arrive at unconventional ways of feeling and doing which challenges the status quo.

    Also Sieglinde, you were 'forced into right handedness' but I don't feel you have been changed, not as a person, who you really are shines through. It's the straight jacket they made us wear we are trying to shed.

    Paul G.

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    1. Hi Paul,

      You said it. It is the straitjacket that psychologically mutilates people. Remembering the force, a feeling of hatred comes up, a feeling of hate I have for all manipulations.

      In fact it was the Catholic church that set the standards of what is right or wrong and still do today. Later, other religions adopted and extended the nonsense to hold people hostage. Even psychology a la Jung and Freud used the format to label. This kind of “norming people” became an obsession with the Nazis. They measured body parts and if you didn’t fit into the “norm” you were “abnormal”.
      My father, a Nazi and a Catholic combined both labeling techniques to label me. My legs were too short, my nipples 1 centimeter too low and so on.

      One other example how damaging ignorance and traditional labeling is:

      At age 6 to about 17, I had a crystal clear voice and could hit the note exactly without sliding. My father used the piano tuner to detect how clear my hi C was. He exposed me, my voice everywhere he had a chance, so he could shine. I had to sing in front of an audience and he accompanied me on the violin. At one time I had to come with to his (40 people) orchestra practice. He commanded his orchestra to tune their string-instruments to my hi C.

      I hated my voice and wished it would go away, - and it did.

      At age 18, meanwhile I was in a Christian institution, my singing voice was gone. The religious spinsters, who knew my voice from 3 years earlier, told me, that God had cursed me for being rebellious.

      My father, who counted on my voice for HIS glorious future,( he planned my future as an opera star), declared me as useless.

      Belief (unfounded knowledge) can lead to baseless assumptions and labeling that leaves a traumatic imprint.

      In 2009, I received neurological proof concerning why my voice disappeared way back then.

      An MRI (with contrast) revealed that at I had Chiari malformation. The facts are: my skull was too small and as my brain became larger (around age 18) it got crammed into a too small skull. Over the years a 1.5 inch cerebellum tonsil was growing down into my neck, while my brainstem was forced to lean forward causing a kink in the trachea and esophagus. The pressure from the forward leaning brainstem also squeezed my vocal cords.

      I think everybody can understand that I become furious when unfounded statements are made that diminish the identity of a person.
      Sieglinde

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    2. paul, the real person doesn't shine through. the real person is unconscious, virtually non-existent. you don't know the real sieglinde. you don't know the real me. you don't know the real you. we don't feel our real selves....we only feel the mild effects of our bizarre act-outs, and some fake feelings which manage to leak through the brain's neurotic circuitry.

      yes, the act-out comes from a real need, but the real need is neither felt, nor shining through. we are unconscious.

      in therapy the real person comes alive. but until then, you cannot feel the REAL YOU. you can only feel the FAKE YOU. do you see what i'm saying?

      most people would fiercely disagree, but i know it's true. i know what it feels like to come alive for a moment and then die again. if those moments had never happened to me, i wouldn't know that i'm unconscious. my awareness of my fakeness, and my unconsciousness, came from those experiences. i have never been influenced by Art.

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    3. Richard,
      Why do you making unfounded statements? Not everybody is unconscious – not everybody is living a fake life!!!!!!!
      What is it you are looking for with this posting? Where is this rage coming from?
      Sieglinde

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  9. Sieglinde, true, back in the day (luckily way before I was born) left-handedness was seen as a sign of the devil by some, or just something that needed correcting. I'm thinking of Jimi Hendrix, whose dad thought left-handedness was a bad thing. If you see pictures of Jimi writing something, you'll notice he uses his right hand. I don't know if that was his natural preference as a child, but if it wasn't, it's a safe bet his dad forced him to write with his right hand.

    If Jimi's dad was in the same room, Jimi had to play the guitar right-handed. As soon as his dad left the room, he swithed the guitar and strings around and played left-handed. So he was able to play well either way, but he preferred playing left-handed.

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    1. Antti:He had so many traumas that led to his drug use, but that was certainly one of them. He was amazing, and I still listen. For me he and the Beatles were the sounds of the sixties revolution. art

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    2. AnttiJ
      I believe the presence of fear accelerate a talent. Which of the most brilliant people is without trauma?
      Sieglinde

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    3. Hi Sieglinde,

      -"I believe the presence of fear accelerate a talent. Which of the most brilliant people is without trauma"?-

      There's an ongoing debate about this and some artists keep on steering away from therapy because the rumour is that 'therapy, normalcy', takes away creativity.

      I feel it's the attempt to face up to our traumas that makes us more creative, (talented to start out or otherwise).

      I understand that 'doing' is often a very effective defence against feeling; hence scrabbling around all the time to make money, to make ends meet and so on:
      "Don't talk to me about pain and feelings". . . ! "I'm too busy".

      So what is it about art that can help us to our feelings? I mean Alice Miller got to hers through art. On the cover of one of her books there is an abstract but you can see the foetus/child in there. Alice is dead now so we can't ask her how she arrived at that, how her feelings were for her as that painting unfolded. I know people who use art (and crafts) not as a defence against feelings but as a way to feelings.

      I'm one of them.

      Paul G.

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    4. all of them. brilliance is normal.

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  10. Hi Richard,

    I know the me that screams for my Mum, night after night after night plus insomnia, day after day after day in the car and at work. Anxiety and a whole world of s***e. I know the me that Rages about my fathers' abuse and I know the psychopath that tortured me at school and compounded my imprints. I know the me that looks after my children and my grandchild and I know the me that wishes I wasn't such a bloody know all! That's the fake me you don't like, I don't like him either.

    I don't like ordinary art but some work is very good, not all is bad and even Art says we get love wherever we can. I prefer carpentry. The Scapegoat Complex is widespread. The whole human world is driven by it and will quite likely be destroyed by it. It's happened before. History does repeat itself.

    Actually Richard I really do understand and know what you mean, but I know the me that feels, at last. I'm sort of glad I no longer 'know' those so called friends who never call because they've no problems (!) I'm the boogy man who breaks down and cries and tells it how it is. I didn't cultivate being eccentric and neurotic, My childhood "Mentors" did that to me.

    I also know the me that is trying to save up for Primal Therapy but really must spend the money on my one room rent and my children who depend on my REAL SANITY and feelings. If the recession carries on I will be on the dole living out the back of my Landrover. Then society will be able to say how dysfunctional I really am whilst my children will want to ride with me.

    Fuck ordinary society I say, come on kids, ride with me!

    PG.

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  11. Jimmy Hendrix: Back in the day I paid $2.50 to go to Fillmore East. Steppenwolf, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and The Electric Flag (Buddy Miles, Mike Bloomfield, etc.) were playing. Halfway through the latter's set, Bloomfield said he had to leave. He was perhaps THE "guitar man" of the era. The audience naturally went nuts protesting.

    To calm us down, he said a buddy would sit in for him. Out walks Hendrix in a cape, feathered hat, etc. We went further nuts, this time with pleasure.

    NPR did a series on Hendrix, including jazz sets he used to play. Incredible. Like the series it did on Janis Joplin before life and whiskey coarsened her voice. The station played tapes of her doing choir music as a kid with a pure, angelic voice (like the late Eva Cassidy's).

    Now, anyone ever heard of Waldorf schools? My friend's son went there. Kids are labeled non-judgmentally with different temperaments (caloric and so on) as well as body symmetries. All kids and parents have to knit...I guess to get out of their heads and deal with cross-body issues.

    The kids have the same teacher until they graduate. I met a number of my friend's kid's alum-peers. They were all incredibly talented, kind, caring, and creative. Perhaps we all are, just few lucky enough to have caregivers who provide correct mixes of love, guidance, teaching, etc.

    Julia Cameron ("The Artist's Way") thinks we're all creative. And that the myth of the "lone, suffering artist" is just that. Folks are most creative when they feel safe and encouraged.

    Also, being "alone" doesn't mean being lonely. Most artists have support networks and need friend like they need art. If anything, the world is too full of folks who, a la Pascal, can't stand to be lone with themselves. Having 5,000 "friends" on Facebook often means one has few buddies in reality.

    Anyway, 6 years at the Center? It seem folks work and study and so on while doing Primals. That is, they aren't all trustfunders who can afford to spend years in padded rooms screaming. :>)

    Methinks Art could some PR work to counter what rubes think the Center is. That is, less Bedlam-like screaming nuttery; less Esalen-like crunchy granola California "Mr. Natural" spaceshot-ery; and maybe more talk about the "normal" aspects of the therapy and environs.

    Not sure if I"m being clear or just airing my neuroses. The Betty Ford Clinic made seeking therapy less "odd" while at the same time making it seem available only to the rich and infamous. Primal needs, IMHO, to shed it's image as the "scream therapy" in a way that EST (admittedly not the best example) became Landmark Education.

    Emphasizing pain just scares folks away, like Civil War amputees having stitched wounds seared in boiling oil. Then doctors learned, having to move camps quickly, that COLD oil worked better.

    There is a gentleness to the therapy that gets overlooked. There is concern not to go too far, too fast. An admission that yelling if often just abreaction. That sometimes drugs, like bandaids, can be useful. And so on.

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    1. Trevor You are not doubt right but have you seen my blogs and my last 3 books? That should dissipate all the nonsense. Je n'y peux rien. I can do nothing about it. Tell me how, not only what, we need to do. art

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  12. we will build tiny virtual reality rooms with full body motion and touch sensors with advanced holographic interaction technology. inside these rooms; cyber-sex, video games, junk food and drugs will be the lifestyle of choice for those who are too neurotic to live in the real world. meals and body waste will be processed quickly and efficiently; delivered and removed via a hole in the wall. surgically inserted taps will inject painkillers and drain excess body fat. soapy water will be sprayed from the ceiling and walls every 12 hours. mandatory self-confidence videos will be played every 48 hours.
    it will be a painless, non-violent existence, perfectly regulated by a sophisticated worldwide government.

    meanwhile on Primal Island, relaxed, healthy, sexy people will be lying on a beach, eating curried coconuts, drinking sparkling banana juice, feeling the gentleness of the warm summer breeze. dreaming in each other's arms. living life the way it is meant to be.

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  13. I am cross-dominant as well but I wouldn't say I "suffer" from it. I write with my right hand and do most other things with my left except for something activities where either hand will do. I find I do really well with sports and sometimes have an advantage thanks to using my left hand. It could be that I was put into art classes and house-league sports since I was young and that regulated my cross-dominance and didn't leave me clumsy and awkward.

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  14. Thank you for sharing the story. It was very thrilling to read. The post I would want you to look through is about impact of videogames on child`s mind. Some think it to be a myth while others believe it to be true.

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    1. Frederick, Now you have found something I know nothing about. art

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Review of "Beyond Belief"

This thought-provoking and important book shows how people are drawn toward dangerous beliefs.
“Belief can manifest itself in world-changing ways—and did, in some of history’s ugliest moments, from the rise of Adolf Hitler to the Jonestown mass suicide in 1979. Arthur Janov, a renowned psychologist who penned The Primal Scream, fearlessly tackles the subject of why and how strong believers willingly embrace even the most deranged leaders.
Beyond Belief begins with a lucid explanation of belief systems that, writes Janov, “are maps, something to help us navigate through life more effectively.” While belief systems are not presented as inherently bad, the author concentrates not just on why people adopt belief systems, but why “alienated individuals” in particular seek out “belief systems on the fringes.” The result is a book that is both illuminating and sobering. It explores, for example, how a strongly-held belief can lead radical Islamist jihadists to murder others in suicide acts. Janov writes, “I believe if people had more love in this life, they would not be so anxious to end it in favor of some imaginary existence.”
One of the most compelling aspects of Beyond Belief is the author’s liberal use of case studies, most of which are related in the first person by individuals whose lives were dramatically affected by their involvement in cults. These stories offer an exceptional perspective on the manner in which belief systems can take hold and shape one’s experiences. Joan’s tale, for instance, both engaging and disturbing, describes what it was like to join the Hare Krishnas. Even though she left the sect, observing that participants “are stunted in spiritual awareness,” Joan considers returning someday because “there’s a certain protection there.”
Janov’s great insight into cultish leaders is particularly interesting; he believes such people have had childhoods in which they were “rejected and unloved,” because “only unloved people want to become the wise man or woman (although it is usually male) imparting words of wisdom to others.” This is just one reason why Beyond Belief is such a thought-provoking, important book.”
Barry Silverstein, Freelance Writer

Quotes for "Life Before Birth"

“Life Before Birth is a thrilling journey of discovery, a real joy to read. Janov writes like no one else on the human mind—engaging, brilliant, passionate, and honest.
He is the best writer today on what makes us human—he shows us how the mind works, how it goes wrong, and how to put it right . . . He presents a brand-new approach to dealing with depression, emotional pain, anxiety, and addiction.”
Paul Thompson, PhD, Professor of Neurology, UCLA School of Medicine

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