Sunday, February 5, 2017

On Talking Fast

In childhood I talked so fast that is was hard to understand me, and I never knew why.  Then I had the key feeling. My father was so anxious that he could not sit still and pay attention. When I did have to ask him something, I sensed his impatience and hurried through it. I talked fast. He also never wanted to hear anything I said so he would find reasons to delay listening. "Can't you see I am busy?" I got punished for asking because it was never at the right time. He had no time for me.    

In fact, he didn't want me around. He never addressed me unless it was a criticism: stand up straight, stop talking through  your nose (I had a constant running nose). Mostly, it was “stop bothering me.” He had no time for me. The fates got him at age 63 with a giant heart attack. I began crying at home on the way to the cemetery and my mother ran out screaming, “He's crying!  He's crying!” The opposite of a compassionate mother. She had no interest in acting maternal because she was a five year old and talked baby talk.    

Crying became an anathema. It was nowhere in the family lexicon. I never saw either parent show any feeling in my lifetime. It was a robotic existence. But my metabolism was set to churn at the pace of their indifference. Their whims became my destiny. When they decided to move, there was no warning or explanation;  just pack and get going. Talking to me was a reminder that there was a job to do: take care of me. They wanted no reminder of that.   


I slowed way down later on as I slipped into my feelings about how they had children but wanted nothing to do with them. I was an orphan with a mommy and daddy.
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Friday, February 3, 2017

Awareness Versus Consciousness

There are steps leading to full consciousness. The penultimate one is awareness;  awareness sets the stage for consciousness, which is why we must not confuse the two. In psychoanalysis we are made aware of something but we cannot be made conscious of anything.  I am aware that my father hardly ever talked to me, but I was not conscious of what it did to me, a consciousness that would ineluctably lead to insights and change. Let’s say thereafter I needed men to talk to me and be aware of my existence; whether by a teacher or coach. And therefore my act-out was getting teachers to pay attention to me by my excelling in studies. It made me driven to excel. I never knew about the drive until I became conscious, conscious of my motives, to be loved.  (This is not my case,  this is only an example) 

Animals are very aware of a menace, of a sex object, or a reward. Their cerebrum does not expand beyond that into consciousness.  They can sense and be aware, can be aware but not conscious. Consciousness means an harmonious confluence of all brain levels working to protect the individual from danger, both internal and external. Internal comprises pain imprinted into the nervous system that accumulates into, at times, a massive input that threatens to damage or impair the defense system.  What is too often neglected in therapy is the emotional level which is denigrated in the service of the intellectual level. 

It is the lingering aspect of our history that become an over-weaning burden that results in depression, low blood pressure and other related symptoms. It is the importuning insurgence of that force that can produce ADD, impulsiveness and other signs of an internal overload that cannot be integrated. When we see that conglomerate of afflictions, we must assume an imprinted force that needs integration.  That is our job: to suss out those internal forces, to learn what and where they are, and how to integrate them into the neuro-biologic system.  Integration is the key word here because in psychotherapy the patient is given his insights, which means large room for error as there are built-in errors due to the fact that information is provided by someone else’s perceptions and not the patient’s.   Errors cannot be integrated because they are not organic to the system. They are aliens, strangers that have no business in the biologic system of the patient. That is why we need a therapy that emanates solely from the patient and no one else.  Insights from a therapist are organic to him alone and can be loaded with errors.  Worse, when we genuflect psychologically to the psyche of the patient, we reduce the litany of errors which can be committed. No one is smarter than the patient, nor more perceptive. More important, no one is smarter than the patient’s personal internal time-table in therapy, which dictates when powerful feelings are ready to be experienced. If we neglect this one fact, we are liable to push a patient into massive pain, which can overload him and lead to serious symptoms. No whine before its time. (Oh my, excuse the pun.  I am trying to make a serious subject fun). Alas, too often it is anything but fun. I need my sanity too. But my pun is deadly serious, for we have seen over fifty years what happens when too much pain accumulates without being felt; an overload of pain on a lower level which then wends its way to the top level neocortex where it provides, inter alia, insights to explain what is going on, or delusions to make rational those internal terrors that have been unleashed. They importune us to provide some reason for being so terrified. The person is unaware of deep brain forces at work.  He imagines it comes from outside of him. So the man “hiding” in the phone booth is whispering secrets about him.

So what is an insight? It is the understanding of one’s life, motives, impulses, fears, and obsessions, all proffered by a biologic system that has held this information away because biting the apple of information can be highly painful. Once bitten there is no going back. We cannot erase or undo the insight; if it is correct it is now part of us. And when it comes to the surface to be experienced the system knows it is the right time; if not, it will remain sequestered. And if the person is pushed to experience the pain prematurely, it is, by definition, the wrong time. The warning signs emerge to tell us ”danger ahead.”

So here we have a paradox; a doctor is inculcating information/insights onto the patient who is in no position to hear them. He is “filled-up”  already.  The imprint is a giant load of information that is too much at the moment. In the case of serious mental problems, it may be correct to aid him for a short time with a painkiller to strip the pain of some of its load so part of it can be accepted and be integrated.  One needs a very experienced doctor for this, as when it is mishandled it can lead to serious exacerbation. Feelings in therapy will lead to proper insights when the pain is at an integrable level that can be accepted and is not part of an overload; thus the insights that will come up will be correct and useful. They will make sense. When they are part of an overload and spill unabated into the neocortex, they will be pseudo-insights that help no one. They are just the spillways of too much input.  The new (neocortex) brain must rush in to help deal with it and absorb some of the overload with strange, stretched idealization. These delusions are a very thin blanket for feeble efforts to be rational. 

As we see, there is a universal effort to normalize, to make sense and explain one’s emotions. Alas, when the pain is terrible, this effort fails and we can get gibberish.  In the early days of my practice, I did see some gibberish in very disturbed patients who were down into the brainstem, with no coherent language ability. A very primitive response. So insights are rational and coherent when we are coherent; when the feelings we undergo are now feelable and can rise to the thinking brain untrammeled. 

If we continue on with awareness we will see none of that rationality.  We will see an intellectual who thinks he has made progress; and he has, but it is confined to his rational brain and not his whole system. Therefore he is smart, yet dumb. His panoply of perceptions is warped and sees only parts of reality. He is good at self deception but bad at true perception. He fails in the emotional department. It is that department that means life and its meaning. 


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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