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
Hi all,
ReplyDelete1999-2000 I tried EMDR - it didn’t work.
I went for EMDR because of my debilitating night fear. Before EMDR I had a feeling how and when my night fear was imprinted. After EMDR I have no more access to the imprint - my night fear still exists.
I explained this feeling of access to the night fear to the EMDR therapist and she was convinced that “this is good”. I argued the contrary saying, “if I know when and how the fear was implemented I can erase it”, and if it is good, why do I still have this fear? Her answer was “it will go away”. 13 years later my night fear is just as strong as before EMDR, with the difference being I have no more memory back the original imprint .
Sieglinde
Apparently one way to ruin a truth is to misrepresent it by linking it to bullshit. According to some, it's a deliberate technique of counter-propaganda, sometimes employed by governments to suppress movements antagonistic to their own.
ReplyDeleteWittingly or not, this is what this EMDR thing serves. It promotes a false therapeutic relationship to blocked pain. When the truth of its ineffectiveness comes out, as it no doubt will in the end, will it make the very idea of regressive therapy seem as booga-booga to the public mind, too?
...Like that woman I commented on in an earlier post, who linked traumatic hospital-birthing to blood-drinking cults.
Andrew: I am not keen on taking on all the booga booga out there because it is a waste of time and it is endless. So I will try to stay with the positive; not as in positive psychology that denies pain and wants us to get on in life while carrying around intolerable suffering. art Yes we can ignore the sufferng but we cut our lives short.
DeleteYou know, I sometimes wonder if the development of these therapies boils down to the need to control. They just can't accept the idea that the brain heals (assimilates material) itself. They just *have to* come up with something that puts the therapist in the drivers seat, or more so.
ReplyDeleteAs we know, the intellect will always be the servant of the id. The id says: "Here are my needs - now you go meet them!". So the control freak will always find a way to be the controller, no matter how 'intellectually enlightened' they might be.
When I was a psychology student in the mid-1990s, I read Francine Shapiro's papers about EMDR. Back then, EMDR was very new, and it was called something different ("Saccidic eye movement therapy" or something like that, I think).
ReplyDeleteDr. Shapiro did not provide any theoretical rationale for why EMDR is supposed to work. She seemed to be guessing or making chance observations. She mentioned REM sleep, but she didn't develop the idea.
I don't see why eye-wiggling would matter.
-Tom W
Art,
ReplyDeleteI hope it goes well for you.
The fourth section on E.M.D.R. does not exist on the blog.
Frank
Frank: Sorry, I fixed the link. It works now.
DeleteHi Art ,only this near to my home town there is
ReplyDeletean EMDR praticioner ( it sounds like that Mary baker Eddy "thing" (pardon dad..)Christian Science....
after easter celebrities are over(besides I am on the way to the Italian "crucifixion tour (pardon Jesus...resp.those thousands and thousands of crucified people and animals ...
and now I lost my sntence`s aim ..well I will
recommend that lady! to Your emdr evaluation.
Your emanuel
Emanuel: Last year I went to the Easter mass in Florence Italy, the most amazing parade and church service I have ever seen in my life. I recommend it to all. art
DeleteShe looks 'hard'..
ReplyDeletepeople often look like that when they feel self-conscious in front of the camera. you can't judge a book by it's cover. her face has excellent symmetry and a fantastic set of teeth. good genes. she probably has a good brain, but it needs primal therapy.
ReplyDeleteHi Andrew,
ReplyDeleteI agree, yes, these therapies offer the illusion of control, to both the therapist and to 'client'. As if 'control' is such a desirable asset. . . Why do we need control?
Y'know, Art has raised the subject of how much free will we actually have in life, how much of what we think and do is governed by imprints and natural forces 'beyond our control'. . . I suppose the faculty of intellect offers some 'consciousness', some ability to reflect and that is potentially terrifying. The results are our human ability to red-design & re-construct our environment. To shape things the way we want.
The science of biology and ecology shows us the truth in evolution. We can see the force of 'natural selection' at work. Species adapt to changing environs, evolve or die out. Our human intellect misinterprets that to mean 'survival of the fittest'. . . There you have the terrifying perceptions of the intellect concocting the illusion of 'control'.
Basically these types of 'Cognitive Trick' therapies are a desperate attempt to live 'in control' over nature instead of trying to understand how evolution works in us individuals. It's sad.
And Jacquie, she looks frightened, see the fear behind her facade.
Paul G.
Paul; Tennessee is passing a bill that allows teachers to defy climate change and evolution. art
DeleteHi Paul,
DeleteSurvival of the fittest is real. But in the evolutionary game it's survival that defines fittest. It doesn't matter if you're seriously stupid, for example, if you're brute enough to kill off all your competitors then your temperament maybe the fittest for your given context.
Today humans have the ability to sit back and reflect on what 'fittest' should even be, as we can take some control over our breeding. So the new fitness can be determined by human philosophy. It's a bit like the domestic cat: it survives by being cute, as its fitness is now determined by the human need for substitute babies as opposed to traditional survival pressures. But ultimately, of course, it's all about whatever it is that's going to keep your biological legacy alive.
...Maybe the new fitness will be to be a bit simple, have high boredom tolerance (for drudgery), and be deeply conformist...as the controlling oligarchies can effectively define our fitness based on what they want, like we define the domestic cats fitness based on what we want. Ever see the Brave New World movie?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gxDNmrJ65A
What was the reason you put the picture?
ReplyDeleteOnly because that is the way the original article appeared on the NYTimes page.
DeleteArt ,You are so right : whwn i listen and sang1 those Italian songs and of course!!! Bach`s music i had tears in my eyes and longing in my
ReplyDeleteheart to be sane and whole . yours 1 emanuel
Hi,
ReplyDeleteHave any of you got into Palestrina? His own requiem mass brings me to torrents.
Paul G.
Hi Art,
ReplyDelete-"Paul; Tennessee is passing a bill that allows teachers to defy climate change and evolution. art
And US vetoed the Rio Earth Summit. And UK approved paddling kids etc etc.
Anyway, this is a psyche blog not a political forum. . .
Paul G.
Completely off topic:
ReplyDeleteHello Art,
Just wanted to brief you that my brother (Richard) and I have set in a strict savings regime which should see Richard in LA in a couple of years time, or less. He goes first - I go second. (It makes sense to combine our savings). So it's all full steam ahead, as fast as we can go at least. It's all a lot later than it should be, but that's neurosis, I suppose.
Andrew: Terrific. Are you forgetting a small point? my age. art
DeleteWell Art, I'm anticipating that if you retire (completely) or die soon, the opportunity for PT will not immediately disappear after you! Please correct me if that's wrong.
Delete-oh, and what I mean by 'later' is the beginning of the savings regime, not the 2-years. The latter is as fast as we can reasonably save.
Andrew: Got it. I always understood. art
DeleteAn email comment:
ReplyDelete"Recently I have been reading Robert Whitakers Mad In America, which details the evils of psychiatry in this country.
In this book, Mr. Whitaker, writes about just how useles psychiattry is, for example Psychiatric outcomes in this country are worse than for the country of Nigeria.
Mr Witaker who has won a puliiyzer prize for writing about the concerns of mental health, documents all of the lies, and psychiatric evils. For example he writes about WHO studies that show putting people on psych meds is one of the worst things you can do to them. Because patients never put on meds have the best prognosis.
He also wries about many instances in which psychiatry experimentated on patients without their knowledge. There is also and interesting discussion of D2 sensitivity, precipitating worse breaks, as a result of psych meds.
In one study, he discusses psychiatrists, who tricked newly admited mental patients into particpating, in what they thought was a study of the effectiveness of medications for their symptoms during a first break. What they did instead was try and make their psychotic symptoms worse so that they could test the effetiveness of new as yet unapproved anti psychotic meds on them. To do this they gave them, shots of Cocaine, Methamphetamine, or Methyphenidate. Once they were pushed into full blown psychosis, they gave them the new meds. Then used the results to get these meds appoved.
They found that methylphenidate, a drug prescribed to millions of children, as an ADHD medicaiton, was the most powerul of the three drugs when it came to pushing someone into full blown psychosis. A souped up version of Methyphenidate, sold in legaly in this country as "bath Salts" is currenlty leading to a dramatic increase in psychiatric admissions.
EMDR is ridiculous, its just another way to get billiable hours for patients, and make them belive they are getting something. Its make believe. "
We know that psychopaths prey on vulnerable people. That is who they are. They sometimes do it in a mass-organised style too, via cults and certain religions.
DeleteIs much of the psychiatric industry any different?