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
Well then the entire human species is screwed.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteHi Art,
DeletePerhaps mental illness/neurosis was initially an evolutionary adaptation that was 'designed' to promote the survival of the species rather than the individual.
The question has been raised, if mental illness is so maladaptive and the so called 'survival of the fittest' is the evolutionary rule, then why hasn't evolution found a way to weed out the genes and/or other mechanisms that contribute to mental illness, particularly those mechanisms that Art has written about here in his blog and in his books?
The survival of the species is certainly a different concept from the survival of the individual but still no guarantee of success.
In that sense I tend to agree with Mark's comment and although I do feel we will survive somehow, I only hope it is as a fully feeling species such as Art has written about.
Kind regards
Steve
Mental illness is adaptive as the brain under attack by adverse input searches out a defense, and then lands on the last brain developed to use beliefs to counter feeling: they always fail. Art
DeleteLove is far from being a reality for me... but pain is!
ReplyDeleteWhat did I do all those days alone with my father when I was five years old... mom worked and my siblings were in school... and I'm home alone with my father... who had worked night so I had to be alone in a room without to make any noise and wait for him so that he could sleep before he came into the room where sat and got mentally ill. How I then get away from it that is a mystreie for me.
He came in around lunch and looked as if he could beat me any second. I know that this happened day after day but I do not know where I went in myself... I know that my mental health become schizophrenic when there at the time and I can get there by my sadness that nobody wants me. Yes that's all it is ... I'm myself as mentally ill and have absolutely no way out from there except that it erases down and I return... so am I growing together with what I have never been but are without any knowledge of it.
That is my condition that I return to over and over again and so I grow together with it... a self I now understand would have made me to sit in a mental hospital for the rest of my life if not primal therapy come in to my life... but I still feel no need for my dad... he's just a threat to me.
I can in some form recall what is beautiful to me... where I can experience a peace of mind... but it is still in the secret room of myself... so I am still in a threat to my self from memories that I am not done with.
Frank
Frank, I understand what you have been through. Art
DeleteSorry to hijack your blog Art but I have to write this. Today I was in a dangerous situation. I was walking across a pedestrian crossing. As I walked in front of a motorcyclist, he revved up his engine to make it sound like he was accelerating, but he had his gear in neutral.... he was just having a laugh. My terror quickly turned to rage as I realised I was not going to die. I aggressively put my hand toward his face signalling him to stop, but with obvious sarcasm and hatred... and most of all, rage.
ReplyDeleteHe was a stocky, strong looking guy. He started to ride off but then he started to pull over... couldn't make up his mind...and then rode off. He was obviously contemplating whether to pull over and confront me.
As he started to pull over, a massive wave of adrenaline rushed through me, and time slowed down. My rage went out of control. I was totally out of control. At that point I was 100% ready to kill him. I am NOT a murderer, but all of my rational mind was gone, and I was totally ready to kill him. I even knew what I was going to do... and it was not premeditated... I just knew what to do. I was going to trip him up and when he fell to the ground I was going to stomp on his neck... the only vulnerable part of his body.
This whole scenario went through my mind in less than a second....absolutely immediate. Anyone in court would not believe me...they would say I had time to think of it before doing it. But I didn't think of it! I was just going to do it.... without any thought of going to jail. I was truly out of control.
Lucky for me, the asshole decided to ride away. At the time I also felt that the guy had no chance of winning the fight. I was so enraged like a super-charged animal... I KNEW I would be a hundred times faster than him and he would be immediately thrown to the ground, and stomped on. I KNEW this would happen.
Very dangerous feeling!!!! All of my moral conscience was GONE. I don't ever want to kill anyone....and yet, right at that moment, I could have really done it.
Now I can understand why so many people kill and go to jail. They were out of control like I was. I don't like to admit that I am no better than them. I often think of murderers as disgusting animals....but that's what I was...an animal.
And in reality, it is quite possible that the motorcyclist could have beaten me to a pulp or even killed me. I know that now that the adrenaline has subsided and my rational brain is working.
Now I can see why you, Art, will not judge a murderer they way most people do. You know what happens when a person loses control. It's not pretty and it's unstoppable.
I need to resolve much of this dislocated rage so that nobody can trigger me like this. And I have more respect for those who murder...not because of what they have done, but because they are not totally evil...they just lost their humanness for a moment... and they don't deserve to be persecuted forever afterwards.
Richard,
DeleteWe are all only as good as we have been bred and brought up.
We are all products of a conception, a gestation, a birth, and an upbringing. If you have a problem with the product, you have to check with the factory for the cause of the problem.
Criminals, assholes, perverts, neurotics, psychotics,, misfits, people will every kind of emotional, or mental or physical disorder, or malfunction, like ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, schitzophrenia, personality disorders, and everything else, is caused by some sort of failed parenting.
There needs to be a law passed, where if an individual turns out (grows up) with some sort of disorder, malfunction, or any kind, anything less than perfect, the individual has the right to sue his or her parents for damages.
If the individual is in such bad shape, that he lands up on welfare or disability, which means he becomes a ward of the state, the state has the right to sue the parents for damages and up keep and maintenance.
When you understand all this properly, it is the only right thing to do.
No difference than if someone broke your arm, you have the right to sue him for damages.
David
Most interesting. I have made out the papers for my parents. Art
DeleteDavid,
Delete'sue the perp'? A wonderful Utopian nightmare methinks !
They just withdrew legal aid for poor people in UK. Even the Judges think it's a bad idea, & not because it does them out of work; if only it were that simple. . .
And anyway, as Art so eloquently put it: "All you get in Court is Law, not Justice". . .
Paul G.
Hi Richard,
Delete-well hijacked imho. I like your post because it reminds me of myself. You experienced the pedestrian version of road rage. Righteous indignation builds up unconsciously over time due to our persistent un met need for love and validation.
To be suddenly 'crossed' is to have your bottle top flipped off and the pressure suddenly and unexpectedly relieved.
Unmet need turns into it's opposite - a desperate and often violent attack - after all 'attack is the best form of defense'.
Nevertheless, I believe there really is a place for 'retribution' and it must be planned. Humour, pranks and 'performance art' offer a way forward for the 'deserving victim' (obfuscated pun most definitely intended) after all, if revenge can be planned and turned into Non Violent Communication, then at least a form of righteous retribution has been executed to help the victim express hir need for validation. Even the perp may benefit. . .
Therefore, I have found that revenge is best served up cold after a protracted period of planning. I am certainly not suggesting planning a crime, that is totally different; although, as you say, some crimes are completely understandable in certain situations, for example when someone has been persistently Gaslit in a relationship.
But Gaslighting is again something different, much more difficult to 'counter' and much harder to endure for the 'duration' of the planning needed to 'get back' your needs. A planned sudden withdrawal without notice, or with very short notice may be the only choice. One I have executed on at least two occasions before. I managed to leave with 'All My Tools & Marbles' as well !
Now that Legal Aid has been withdrawn it is essential to find ways to 'get back' your needs. Without legal aid the state will no longer admit such needs even exist, thus you cannot rely on the state legal system at all, except in those nations that have NOT withdrawn legal aid. Which ones are those?
As a chronic sufferer of negative rumination regarding the loss of these hard won Human Rights in my society, I have developed a new and deeper ironic humour which continues to infuriate my 'enemies'.
- Such as my agent's wife, her hate is palpable and demonstrates just exactly how one individual can 'LOVE' one person & 'HATE' another, even in the same room at the same time, deliberately (as if she has the 'free will' to do so). She is an obsessive compulsive pre psychotic 'housewife' who does the bookeeping. . . Her unmet need oozes out at the men she 'hates' and the 'boys' she despises for leaving used tea bags on the canteen top. She has to 'wash & wipe' and 'crash & bang' as she 'cleans away the sins of her little naughty boys'. . .
A proper 'Man Hater' she is, if there ever was. . . I pity her. I also marvel at her husband's brash ability to endure her hate, which is not confined to me but randomly aimed at every male EXCEPT customers. . .
My agent, (her husband) tells me that this is what women are like and I should just endure it. . . Meanwhile he Gaslights me over the timber, the drawings, the workshop space, the deadlines, my tools and my non existent zero hours contract.
These 'clowns' I work with even told me they couldn't find another carpenter to replace me. . . I wonder why? Do rumours spread?
As you can see, I am planning my withdrawal & notice will be short.
Paul G.
LOL!
DeleteYes,the law needs to be similar to what it is for suing auto manufacturers, if they make and sell a defective car.
The individual or the government sues the manufacturer.
David
But David, don't forget that the parents were mistreated too, or why else would they raise their children without love, for they were unloved too and take out their problems on their children. Then there should be generations of lawsuits. But then I guess the present generation without therapy and messed up can decide to not have children and invoke the premise: 'the buck stops here.'
DeleteAlso, we don't know for sure if dyslexia is a genetic occurrence or not. It can follow several generations in a family.
Sheri,
DeleteFor one thing:
What was true yesterday, is not necessarily true today.
Today, the knowledge of what causes mental and emotional disorders is sufficiently well known.
And has been since at least the 50s.
And very increasingly since.
Today there is no good reason, no excuse not to know how to make and gestate and birth and raise well adjusted children.
If people were intelligent enough to stop and do some homework and research, (read the right kind of books, and do some thinking and preparation) before jumping in the sack and make babies, they could prevent these problems.
The principles were actually known and actually written about for thousands of yrs.
The knowledge was available for those with the mind to seek, know and understand.
I read those books more than 30 yrs ago.
But I will give people some slack for what happened before the last 50 or 70 or a 100 yrs ago.
Maybe only ten lashings instead of 40.
From today onward, there is certainly no excuse.
Especially with the internet, pretty well everyone has access to almost all knowledge at their fingertips.
Maybe you are doing sufficiently well, and were able to get married and have a family, and be sufficiently able to earn a living or be do the ideal and be a housewife and help your husband earn a living.
But what if you were so fucked up, that you could not do so, if you were so neurotic, or with with so many mental and emotional disorders and physical disorders, and relationship disorders, or so schitzophrenic or even worse; psychotic, ....maybe you would think different, if your life was totally ruined or destroyed.
Consider this:
If some crazed nutcase came along now, and killed your husband and children and burnt your house down, burnt your car, and raped you, then broke your limbs, and then threw you in a ditch somewhere, what would you want done to that person?
There is not really any difference in how a person's life is ruined.
RE: Dyslexia:
I know very thoroughly and exactly what the cause of dyslexia and
most other disorders is.
There are only a few left that I do not know the cause of.
But I have some clues and ideas on some, that need to be verified yet.
The research is continuing.
David
My oh my. You know so much. How did that happen, or did it? Beware of arrogance. It shuts down real knowledge. Art
DeleteDavid, I cut people a lot of slack for not being perfect parents. There would not be any children born if would-be parents had no doubts about raising kids. And knowing how to raise children without pain just from reading books won't do. You can read all the right things to do but it won't put love in your heart. It won't make you sensitive to a toddler's needs, it won't make you a good and understanding spouse until you've gotten rid of the defenses that made you hide your pains growing up. It takes therapy. People can read about therapy and not see the value or promise it would provide. Otherwise everyone would be clamoring for it. Instead they go to church and send their children to Sunday school so they/we can learn to be good and harness our 'bad thoughts' and learn about how to treat each other nicely.
DeleteRight on. Art
DeleteSomeone once said that a son knows the grandfather through the mother and a daughter knows the grandmother through the father. In other words, each generation encounters in their relationship with the opposite sex parent that parent's own relationship to their parent. So, a mother with a bad relationship to her own father will project that relationship onto her son so that he receives an imprint of mum's relationship to grandfather. Is this one aspect of how imprinting works, Art? There are a number of concepts in psychology that do not get much coverage these days, which is a shame.
ReplyDeleteImprinting, imitation, instinct...to some extent these derive from animal observation which psychologists have given up in favour of laboratory studies of individuals (i.e. no social context) and data analysis. I think we need to go back to basics, personally
Long time I have not heard from you. What are you up to? Art
DeleteHopeless
ReplyDeleteOnly hopeless if we have neurotic parents. Art
DeleteOnly "hopeless" if we do not have corrective emotional experiences that we may get from parents, therapy, or otherwise if we are very fortunate.
DeleteA lot of people just don't think; if they did, many wouldn't be the way they are. Some parents provide everything for a child (but not spoiling the child),and that child makes a mess of themselves all by themselves...a lot of times due to what kind of "friends" they make and/or peer pressure. There are still good parents in this world; there are still good people also. But I do agree with what Art is saying here (how things can be messed up from generation to generation). Many parents should have thought before they even considered conceiving a child (sad to say). Many times, with all the technology, the world is too-fast paced; where it is that many people don't show feelings, don't have feelings, don't have reasoning, and if they do, they won't show reasoning (good judgement) nor, if they possess it, will they show their intelligence either. What is it? Are people just too tired from fussing with all the technology out there on a daily basis. Are they so wrapped up with the idea that youth rules and/or "my kid is the leader now"? The new generation is so opposite from the past generation of kids. A lot of people, now, just don't think; especially parents of "today's child".
ReplyDeletePart one:
DeleteBeachcoast,
If the parents were good parents, the child would know how to think and know how to choose good friends.
Parents who provide "everything" for the child, are not good parents.
A child does not make a mess of themselves all by themselves.
The parents you refer to, were not good parents.
The parents made the mess of the child in the first place.
A child has the innate potential to be smart but is made stupid and crazy by stupid and crazy or ignorant parents.
Or simply born smart and able, and made stupid and dysfunctional.
Like I said before, all disabilities and disorders, are caused by some kind of parental failure, which includes damage inadvertently done to children by parents who do know anything useful about children and how to bring them up.
All they really know of is the urge to have sex and make a baby.
Anyone can make a baby, but very few know how to bring that baby up and make him able to fulfill his full potential.
Anyone can make a baby, not many know how to be moms and dads.
It is difficult to find parents who know how to bring up children.
Today's crazy world is a collective product of yesterday's collective failed parenting.
Much of the bad parenting in society problem comes from using the bible as a parenting manual.
The bible is a good book, it does have a lot of good wisdom and advice for life in it, it is a good self improvement and life improvement book, but it is not a good parenting manual.
It is a horrible parenting manual:
New International Version Proverbs 13;14
Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.
English Revised Version
He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.
Webster's Bible Translation
He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.
World English Bible
One who spares the rod hates his son, but one who loves him is careful to discipline him.
Young's Literal Translation
Whoso is sparing his rod is hating his son, And whoso is loving him hath hastened him chastisement.
and other related or supporting verses.
Now my commentary on the above biblical parenting advice:
I will be blunt and say that such advice is not the word of God, it is just bad shallow, social ignorance, taken as wisdom. It is the shallow, uneducated or uninformed opinion of the people writing the bible at that time.
(It was the best they knew.)
Actually it is worse than that.
In light of what we know today, it is religion incited child abuse, of which all abuse is criminal.
That statement is in fact criminal.
It is religion incited, condoned, motivated, justified child abuse (crime).
And people extrapolate all kinds of other rules from it, for bringing up children, like the idea of "tough love". "Tough love" is an oxymoron. It is also criminal, because it means tough discipline, which means some form of capital punishment, which is abuse. And all abuse is criminal.
Billions of lives were ruined because of that statement.
It is the cause of much of the world's problems, much of the world's mental and emotional illnesses or disorders.
Each generation getting a little bit worse over time and we have neurotic parents who are neurotic because they were "rodded" (which means beaten) and they have children which inherit the parent's neurosis in one way or another.
Add smoking, alcohol and drugs to the mix and working pregnant women and working moms and women's liberation and feminism and you now have all hell breaking out.
Part two:
DeleteA real life example: I just saw a report on the news how UBER has literally disintegrated. The founder left the company a few days ago, and the news story explained the toxic situation in the company. And many women left the company and so forth. That company was evidently full of fucked up millinials.
In fact most if not all companies today are in different degrees of this kind.
All products of failed parenting, a failing society, a failing civilization.
Most people today, under 60 (mostly brought up in front of the TV therefore have mostly shit for brains) and the majority have a very poor sense of right and wrong, true and false, and good and bad, which is the definition of insanity.
The mass of insanity has become larger than the mass of sanity.
Thanks to social media and other modern technology, the mass of insanity has also become much more powerful than the mass of sanity has to keep it in check.
In other words the number of crazy people has become much larger and much more powerful than the number of good sane sensible people, and their ability to keep the crazies in check.
We now have a civilization that is close to self destructing (with chaos almost everywhere), or blowing it self up. Think North Korea as being on the forefront. The lunatic Kim Jung Un is desperate and determined to blow the USA off the map.
But there are other converging factors too, particularly feminism and women's liberation. That is the most militant, most violent, most covert force on earth. Although appearing innocent. It is the biggest most sinister, most insidious, most diabolical, most evil Trojan horse or "wolf in sheep's clothing" ever.
There are many laws of life, which if broken, will cause much more problems, much more pain and suffering, much more chaos, than society will be not only not willing to pay for, but not able to pay for.
Look at the dramatically increasing cost of security and compound security today and the cost to society.
Compare it to 60 or more yrs ago, when most people did not even lock their doors.
And society is only focused on treating the effects (the symptoms), not the cause.
If you never treat and cure the cause you will always have the cause and the cause will grow more compound and more complex, similar to compound interest.
It is impossible to cure a cause by treating the effect (symptom).
And most if not all of societies leaders in all fields, politics, science and academia are not intelligent enough to realize that.
They are like the firemen who are running around fighting fires, but totally oblivious to the arsonist running around setting the fires.
End.
Art,
ReplyDeleteIn your blogs you only talk about the causes of mental and emotional disorders.
Which is all very good. It needs to be done. Everyone need to understand these things.
But what also needs to be written about and fully explained is the other part of the equation:
What is the ideal protocol on how to conceive, gestate and give birth and bring up children so they are without mental, emotional and physical disorders,..... of any kind?
So they are as perfect and well adjusted as one can imagine, or at least expect?
David
I am writing a book on that now. Art
DeleteWhat can one do? Coming from a good family is important and if one is fortunate enough...it is good and very much appreciative. But someone once said to me, "of course...it's my family where I came from. It's the only family I will ever have and I love them" and he went through really tough times with his mother (his father was dead when he was 5. For this 5 year-old growing up and becoming an adult, it left an imprint; but what can one do? They can't rely on people "friends" from the outside or can they ? A good friend , one someone can trust and not have any false emotions given to them, or false pretenses, is hard to find especially now. Yes, it is something that does happen with bad parenting. But somehow, one should try, in someway to "get out" of that funk; if at all possible. Sure I read what is being said, and can see where this type of upbringing would definitely leave an imprint....but one has to be strong mentally and physically. One has to be able to feel that they can still breath, still feel that they can be able to "release emotions" , feel freer mentally and physically, and still feel good about oneself. One has to "carry on"; even if it is a constant "fight" to get out of "this funk" (to put it mildly). It is very sad when parenting isn't good for the child; maybe for some, it is impossible to "cure" or alleviate the pain of the imprint.
ReplyDeleteThat is exactly the reason why I spent 50 years daily perfecting Primal; to put a stop to the madness, including my own. Art
DeleteThere is no better thing, that you can do for humanity.
DeleteBecause humanity has no bigger problem.
People fail in any endeavor for only one reason and that is for the lack of the right knowledge to solve the problem at hand.
Find the right knowledge and you solve any problem.
In this case,if parents had the right knowledge, they could prevent any problem.
Actually I am working on such a project too, but my dyslexia and ADD and ADHD, really throws me off.
David
Thank you Art...we do so appreciate your work; that's for sure!
DeleteBeachcoast,
DeleteRe: But somehow, one should try, in someway to "get out" of that funk; if at all possible.
The key words here are "if at all possible".
The fact of the matter is that everyone does do the best they can with what they got. No exception.
Each case has to be evaluated on it's own factors by a person who fully understands this, through and through.
And the reason's can be found in each case.
Some maybe easy to fix, and others not.
Sometimes it is as simple as having the person read the right kind of self help book or books.
Or hearing a good motivational lecture.
Sometimes it is some good therapy.
And people get better and more able in life.
And become normal or even hyper financially successful.
But likely filled with emotional pain, buried or sequestered.
Put all this on a scale from o to 100.
Lets call this scale the scale of human ability or potential.
100 is perfection (perfect life/full potential) and 0 is death.
Failed parenting, bad parenting, ignorant parenting, negligent parenting abuse, trauma and accidents push or knock or pound the individual down the scale.
Average normal society is between 50 and 60.
That is where normal people are.
That is the rating of normal people.
People above 60 are increasingly able and prosperous (successful) in all aspects of life.
They handle the problems of life very well.
People below 50 are increasingly unable and dysfunctional.
(Actually as one goes down the scale from 100, they are increasingly unable and dysfunctional) but it is hardly noticeable.)
People are told: Oh, when you get knocked down, get up, dust yourself off, forget about it, get tough and put on your best face and carry on.
Well that is all fine and good, and true to a point.
And only to a point.
(Beyond that point, it amounts to only more abuse. Like whipping a crippled man in a wheel chair, because he cannot get up and run up the stairs. Or whipping someone mentally retarded because he cannot compete in life. )
Like for example: if someone gives someone one blow to the head, it may not do any serious damage.
It may put him down from, say a 70 to a 60 or 55.
If the guy got two blows to the head, he will likely have some damage, but get up and still carry on.
It may put him down from a 55 to a 40. He will struggle along in low mediocrity.
Or maybe live at home with parents. (Like the live at home in parents basement adult children, ......all products of failed parenting.)
If he got three blows to the head, he will be down to a 25 0r 20. He will be a welfare or disability case.
If he got another one, he may be dead.
Look at Mohammed Ali for example.
He was pretty stupid by the end of his boxing career.
It is all a matter of degree of damage.
These blows come in almost infinite number of different ways.
There comes a point on the scale where an individual acquires so much damage that he cannot recover.
He is disabled, to the point where he has to "limp" through life, or if bad enough he has to go on disability.
Or if more severe, he dies.
Like death by a 100o cuts or bee stings.
Understand now?
A large book can be written to explain all this in detail.
David
Amen to that, says this atheist...
DeleteYes indeed!
DeleteFrank
I live in a shared accommodation house. Where the kitchen and bathroom is shared by 6 men. Have been here for over a yr and a half. In places like this, is where mostly people at the bottom of the socio economic ladder live.
ReplyDeleteAll are fucked up, with various personality disorders, and mental and emotional disorders in all different kinds of ways, I can read them all like a book or see through them like a window. And I understand the "why", the cause of everyone of their problems.
Two on disability pension. One on welfare. The others work.
Two in particular have asshole personality disorder. An asshole is someone who shits on others. Another is a megalomaniac, and as well has asshole personality disorder, whose wife kicked him out, because he is such a manipulator. Actually both of their wives kicked them out.
That is the short story.
One man in his 50s, whom I find particularly interesting. He is a little runt of a man. He is of mixed race, black, Jewish and East Indian, and I think something else. He is the most likeable of all.
He is a heavy smoker, and is working hard on becoming an alcoholic.
He is a CNC operator and operates other kinds of machines in shops and factories.
He has had no less than a dozen jobs since we have been here, maybe closer to 20. I do not keep track and nothing he says can be believed.
He will get a job and work for a few days, get totally drunk and not go to work for a few days and this may happen 1-2-3 times and that is it. Then he is looking for a new job.
The main point of me mentioning all this, is that this particular man is so emotionally unnourished, sometimes when he has had a few drinks, he grabs someone in a bear hug and holds on, shaking. He exhibits all kinds of signs that he wants love and emotional nourishment. He so desperately wants parental love.
When he is sleeping, I very often (a few times a week) hear a type or a mixture of painful hollering/groaning,grunting.
I once asked him why he makes this noise when he is sleeping?
He said it is because of nightmares.
The welfare case, is 28. He is a smoker and noticeably neurotic and is useless. His mother is a heavy smoker and is also neurotic and a total fuckup as a mother. Was always always screaming at her son to get a life and get a job. It was almost constant. Until one time (about 9 months ago) I had enough, I could not take it any more. I said a few well placed words. I said to her; there is no such thing as a bad child, there are only bad parents. I said children need love and support, not abuse. I actually said it twice over about a couple of weeks, because the first time it did not sink in. The screaming 95% stopped immediately. I am sure I saved the kids life.
I left out lots of details for simplicity. I just want to share the story and experience, and make the point.
The guy in his 50s who I mentioned above, died. He was 57. Actually to be more accurate, killed himself, (suicide) by drinking and not eating properly, not doing anything properly. He was on a drinking binge then got sick (vomiting) for a few days and landed up in the hospital and died. Doctors said it was pneumonia.
Delete"We do everything we can to avoid suffering as much as possible"?
ReplyDeleteThere is much that hurts to be with... for what happened and to become part of to not suffer terribly... but when difficult to feel?
Being with what happened is a delicate balancing act in the world of thoughts... it to extend over all obstacles to feel! And when difficult to feel?
I "know"... to be what caused the suffering subtracts the suffering when feeling the cause of it.
All that delicious makes anyone sick... so to return to what happened by feeling it is the key to improve life.
And how do I do it without it becoming a disaster for what everything that I carry with me... when even to feel my need is hidden in it self?
Why all is so hard!
First... so I skim what is most viscous... then what is more fluid... to finally reach the milk... my self as I have been trying to avoid all my life... as now are avoided in it self of its terrible pain.
I made this analysis by my memories of how my mother frothed milk. First whipped cream then coffee cream and so finally the milk... which is all of myself... as I need to be to survive and not die prematurely from illnesses.
No... I do not give up... I can just see how hard it is for one and all. I know there is a way to go even for me!
Frank
Love is a non existing thing for what words can explain!
ReplyDeleteThere is such a big difference between talking about love and living it that every word for love is the most impossible to define in the context of what love is in its nature.
We simply do not know what we're talking about! We are and will remain perverted unless we have the great fortune to undergo primal therapy in its proper shape.
It is in the truest sense a hypothesis we're talking about when we take the word love in our mouth. This is something to chew on for those who can not or do not "want to" give up his striving about words to express love... it without having a clue of what he/she says!
We live in an equally empty world that we are alone in it... it until we feel what we want... but first for what we never had love is that possible.
Frank
If you search for "human - clip #13" (without the quotes) on YouTube you should find a video of an afro-american man with a playing time of 3:33. This might give some focus to what is being discussed here. It is a shocking story with an amazing ending. I think what Art is saying is that this man had no chance of growing up un-neurotic given that we now know that methylation is passed on for generations. His father the same. The challenge of primal therapy is to help people recover from early trauma as much as they are able. Clearly we can not relive the experiences of our grandparents or our parents and I don't know enough about the biochemical research to know how to explain or interpret it in any simple human terms. But this video was for me hope inspiring. You could also see it as a demonstration of how unlikely it is that someone who has been so abused all his childhood could get access to his emotions and some sense of what he was denied - love. I had a rage filled chain-smoking father but my mother had a kind heart (just confused) - my early pains don't even come close to this man's or even Art's for that matter. If just one of the followers of this blog is inspired by this story enough to hang in through the difficult times rather than acting out rage or despair I will consider it was worth posting.
ReplyDeleteGrahame