Articles on Primal Therapy, psychogenesis, causes of psychological traumas, brain development, psychotherapies, neuropsychology, neuropsychotherapy. Discussions about causes of anxiety, depression, psychosis, consequences of the birth trauma and life before birth.
Sunday, December 4, 2016
If You Value Privacy?
If you truly value privacy do not ever join the Navy. I will tell you why. 3000 of us slept head to feet every night. If anyone snored then none of us slept. If you wanted to do a serious bathroom, do not go to the john. There are little tin gutters with water flowing through them to wash it out. We sat on the gutter facing guys just facing us with all the grunts and noises. For me it was humiliating. And worse, during battle and rough weather, the ship was rolling up and down and sideways and “material” was flying all over the place. Unbelievable. When we tried to zip up and walk out, the waves were so high that we had to walk up a huge hill to get out, usually we bang against the steel doors. Or as the wave was deeper we found ourselves hurtling downhill to leave. If we were eating then food fled everywhere.
During battle the 16 inch guns moved the ship 16 feet to the side and buckled decks. Their noise was deafening and many of us on the gun mount went partially deaf afterward. If a bullet stuck we dared not touch it as it was white hot. I had a machine gun mount just on the side of the 16 inters. And I never once considered that I was shooting at human beings, the mothers and children who ran into the sea to escape our shells. These were not Japanese soldiers, they were families who lived there; it was their home, until we arrived. I was never mad at anyone, I was just doing a job…..to kill. And when a submarine tried to sink us we fired on the men who run up to the top deck to escape. We blew them up to the top with our depth charges.
We had to take our guns and helmets with us during battle because we could not go back inside for days. The ship had to remain waterproof at all times. We used our helmet to do our defecation and washed it out by dipping it in the sea. But we had no food and ability for ablutions for days at a time. If you value privacy would you like to do that? I never thought it was so bad, at age 18. That is why they get us very young. We know nothing and do not have the experience to question anything. ayayay. 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
Hi Art,
ReplyDeletethis reminds me of my boarding school days, obviously not as intense as this but when you say you look back and wonder at the deprivation you accepted as 'normal' I feel the same way about school. I just knew no different.
Paul G.
Art,
ReplyDeleteAn eyewitness report from a Second World War Veteran, one of the last.
You have witnessed and lived through all kinds of pain. We all know war, conflict, terrorism, murder, violence and abuse - they all rest on Pain.
So it is nice and proper that you came up with a way of dissolving and preventing pain. Good.
Erik
Art,
ReplyDeleteAn eyewitness report from a Second World War Veteran, one of the last.
You have witnessed and lived through all kinds of pain. We all know war, conflict, terrorism, murder, violence and abuse - they all rest on Pain.
So it is nice and proper that you came up with a way of dissolving and preventing pain. Good.
Erik
Jesus Wept, horrific and sad, sorry to hear you have this in you, Art.
ReplyDeleteMy dad used to have a few drinks and laugh about his days in the Army. But it wasn't laughable, that's for sure. The alcohol was just an oil for him to get the horrors out without totally breaking down. He needed someone to tell, and that someone was me.
One story in particular I remember was when they were getting the crap kicked out of them by the Germans in Greece. It was so flat in that part of the country the only thing they had to hide under from the strafing was wire fences.
Then he'd say "Bloody silly really, it's just gave the Stukas a line to follow". And "you'd try to tuck everything up under your helmet, and your arse would start twitching and you'd think God no, not there, anywhere but there!" as the cannon shells thudded closer.
I feel strongly that the younger generations coming through have no concept of what people like my father and yourself endured. It's a story that bears repeating, in hopes that we do not repeat the horrors.
Hugs to you and my dad.
Erron
Erron, don't forget Korea, Vietnam, and the Mideast wars which still rages on.
DeleteIt is said that suicide attempts are made by one thousand veterans a month. And the war machine goes on.
The war against human deprivation will be the war to end all wars, Art.
ReplyDeleteNo child abuse + everyone well fed = no need to go to war, and no impulse to do so.
We will get there in a 100 years or so, I believe. We know too much now about what hurts us. And that will be the end of ghastly adventures such as yours.
-And thanks for posting. Very interesting :)
Hello Andrew D Atkin!
DeleteI think there are much more sophisticated schemes for the "No Child Abuse + everyone well fed = No need to go to war, and no impulse to do so." to be enough for a change. To it... is our behavior to much in a shade of ourself of being the information sufficient for your message about "No Child Abuse + everyone well fed = No need to go to war, and no impulse to do so".
Your Frank
Along with public education, which tells kids about damage and how it affects the brain *before* they have families (and otherwise make some bad decisions), we need some tough policies. like not letting people have children until they can demonstrate they're not in a completely messed up state.
DeleteArt,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
"If you value privacy would you like to do that?"
I do value my privacy, very much, so no way in hell. What you went through sounds horrifying. And humiliating, as you say. Glad you made it.
Kip
My niece developed a bladder problem because she, at the tender age of five, refused to use the school toilets which had NO WALLS to separate each toilet. All the boys and girls urinated and defecated in full view of each other because the adults thought it was a good idea. This was about 15 years ago.
ReplyDeleteThese adult ideas are based on the assumption that kids are just kids.... their feelings don't count. And if the kids feel bad, it doesn't really matter because their suffering is for the greater good.
Truth is, their suffering is for the adult's convenience. Entire countries are run by unfeeling 'adults'.
Having suffered for the memory of death intensity is likely to be the reason as takes place against oneself to becoming a driving force in the process of the revolution of primal therapy!
ReplyDeleteIf this is the case... then the question of how this should be avoided for what the process around primlaterapin can be an obstacle!
I do not see other than that all that undergone primal therapy otherwise would stand on the barricades of the revolutionary process primal therapy is... it in a society as striving for what science tells us about and above all the pain we are otherwise exposed to.
Frank Larsson
We've all gone through thick and thin, but this...Oh My goodness. How degradating for human condition to just do one's job without questioning the supposed meaning of it. I understand the unbearable pain of so many veterans. To surmount the guilt and be able no only to keep staying alive but as a loving being as well requires a deep dip into primaling. I'm so sorry. Lars
ReplyDeleteAn email comment: " "That is why they get us very young. We know nothing and do not have the experience to question anything."
ReplyDeleteExactly - we were just cannon-fodder to them."
Another email comment:
ReplyDelete"OH buddy hahahahaaha you poor thing. They never show stuff like that in the movies. ;) Gee I wonder why? You mean it wasn't a wonderland of gallantry and with beautiful sunsets over the sea? ;)
That's also what really gets to me about "nature films", all that horrible suffering and they say "look at the beautiful parrot" oops the snake got him. Oh and those cute chimps what are they doing? Why they are herding little monkeys toward some other chimpanzees, oh no, they are eating them. How could they?
It seems we are very like the rest of nature...
Have a nice day Art. ;)"
Another email comment:
ReplyDelete"Your last blog also touched me, the one
about your time in the navy (in the Pacific?).
I lived through part of the London blitz.
At 20 I ran way to Ireland to escape
military service. Only to be arrested there
"on suspicion of being a member of the IRA".
[That's another story].
Yes, why do young men and young women
join the armed forces? To be turned into killers!
[I was a Ban-the-Bomber in the 1960s]
Good you are writing and providing
feeling experiences. Thank you, Art."
Another email comment:
ReplyDelete"Getting em young is what the education system depends on; innocence and openness. Generally, the younger the child, the easier to influence, read traumatize, and the young remain "young" all their life. Even at the wise old age of 80, neurotics are susceptible to being swayed by psychotics and bizarre ideas.
Recently I attended, by accident, a talk given by a young woman who intends starting up a Summerhill style school here in Portugal. For those who don´t know what this means, Summerhill was a radically different school set up, and stil running but in a much more toned down way, in 1921 based on the almost total freedom and self direction of children. No classes were compulsory, no control, no rules, save those to protect childrens safety, the only "punishments" those handed out at the weekly school meetings where children had equal power with the teachers. No shaming. No threats. No bullying. Food fights were common. From the books written by the headmaster, it worked a dream in producing relatively unneurotic adults.
Back to the meeting. There were maybe 60 parents and children. The "headmistress", Zoe, was left only 10 minutes to speak after the 1 hr 50 minutes taken up by the usual torrent of interminable details dished out by the Portuguese delegates, which says a lot about the Portuguese mentality; lost in details, can´t see the wood for trees. She gave a good delivery, all about childrens empowerment and freedom and so on.
However, I know virtually all the people there and have seen them with their children "beyond prying eyes. And I´ve seen bullying, intimidation, humiliation, hitting,rejection by all of them towards their children.
So why would such people want to send their children to a school which treats them with trust, sensitivity, understanding?
Guilt?
I once worked as a cleaner for a small private School where a young boy waited after school for his mother, and was always frightened and withdrawn. When I asked his classmates about him, they all knew he had red welt marks on his upper thighs and bottom (they saw him in Physical Ed). When I put this to the headmistress, she totally dismissed it. If social workers start snooping, she could face an exodus....
I put this sort of thing on several occasions to Zoe via email, and not once have I had a reply.
If children are being treated at school with respect and gentleness, will the contrast with their home life not make life difficult for them both at home and at school?
Zoe has no answer. Apparently.
So yes, get em young. Three year olds are indoctrinated rote style with the Qu`ran from age 3. Young children in Catholic societies are terrorized fear-of-the-bogeyman style from a young age into being "good" with fear of the wrath of God. Here in Portugal you see the haunted look, the deep terror, in the eyes and posture and you hear it in the voices of these psychophysiologically imprisoned people.
Most children are so traumatized by school starting age, that it is a relatively simple matter to fill their brains with whatever the system wants to fill them. Education is by and large filling the vacuum created by neurosis. The critical faculty is disabled when the real feelings are lost. the child can be made to believbe most anything, however bizarre.
"
"so why would such people want to send their children to a school which treats them with trust, sensitivity, understanding." In my view these people believe they 'love' their children, but in reality they are traumatising them. I did the same with my children. Within my larger family unit there are children with mental problems and the parents 'swear' that they loved their children deeply. I know otherwise. We all did our best but were too damaged ourselves to be the parents our children needed.
DeleteAll technical questions man solves will also be a threat to her existence!
DeleteThe world does not lack thinking people it lacks loving people! Equations in the sense of being thinkers create more and more sophisticated chemical compositions and weapons as will kill and kill each other... it would never come to the question around loving people.
Frank
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (commonly abbreviated as the CRC, CROC, or UNCRC) is a human rights treaty which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children.
ReplyDeleteIn Australia even the entry level childcare worker studies the UN rights of the child and has a duty by law to report any evidence of possible child neglect or abuse whether that be in the home, on the street or in childcare institutions. Children have rights and we must enact them for them.
Katherina
One of the primal therapy infernal scourge!
ReplyDeleteWhen you so blindly hates that it is comparable to "hell". Where then to find need of love? Hate protects us from discovering the pain need of love was/is! It is its twin as painful as denial of love! Hat is a symptom so to say associated to protect against the gruesome pain of need of love. Hatred must get an outlet for where it belongs... not on anything else... but the awakening must be registered.
Not to forget... hate also exists as a highly sophisticated phenomenon around the meanness!
Frank
Hi Art
ReplyDeleteI hope all is well with you. Totally off-topic I saw this and thought you might find it interesting.
http://www.artfido.com/blog/artist-conducts-experiment-where-he-draws-himself-while-on-different-drugs-and-alcohol/
If I had to choose between going to war or step by step undoing the pain of my internal conflict, the choice would be easy, if I realised that these were my only choices. There is only one choice that would end the war and the inner conflict that gets projected out. In light of this, the absurdity of seeking an external enemy to kill an inner demon becomes obvious. However when a person has forgotten who his real self is, he creates a false one to get rid of that painful need. The false self then seeks fullfilment of unconscious need in the external world, and projects the cause of all loss and greif onto an enemy, who he believes has stolen his peace of mind.
ReplyDeleteHe now becomes a stranger to himself as he erases all memory of repression over time, and the original seperation from his knowledge and need for love. Now his need is to seek to be at one with himself again not at war, however he has forgotten this too.
As an adult we can meet our own needs if we are not driven by unconcious ones.
Katherina
Katherina, brilliant. art
DeleteHi Art
ReplyDeleteI do sometimes find your words jar with me, as though you are the only one who gets the absurdity of war, I wish you would not state things in such a way. I don't know if this comment will be published, as it seems to just be the same contributors all the time.
Hi R,
DeleteMaybe you can contribute with additional information?
Erik