Saturday, November 29, 2008

I Promise I Will Be Faithful: No You Won’t

Now why can’t some men and women keep that promise? Well there are many reasons but if we ignore the imprint then we are forced to look at the present for all the answers; whereas the current situation may provide only a few elements.

So what does that mean, the imprint? It means, say, for a man, that he needed love from his mother but all he got was indifference. That lack is imprinted, sealed by the unfulfilled need permanently. It lies on a lower strata so that no matter how loving the girlfriend is, he needs more. Why? Because the nagging, “I am not loved” lies below, agitating him to go elsewhere. And he will become known as a womanizer because he needs to seduce many women, all for the same ending, more infidelity. That, “I am not loved,” drives him every day.

With a woman who was never wanted by her father; that is, who left her feeling unwanted because he was so bound up in his own pain, she is a “sucker” for anyone who really shows he wants her. That need, “I am not wanted,” drives her and makes her give in immediately when a man looks at her and says he finds her beautiful. And yet, no matter how much a man wants her, she needs to seek out other men because “I am not wanted” continually drives her. She needs constant reassurance and assuaging.

A promise is a top level cortical expression; never a match for a deep-lying survival force. How do we know? Because when patients feel that need in all of its agony, they no longer have to promise anything; their body will do it for them. And when we see the huge amount of pain/force involved in experiencing the feeling we know how big a motivator it is.

None of this is conscious. The old need remains pristine pure but the person is never aware of it. The “promise to be faithful” sits on top of, “I can’t be faithful until my mother loves me.” After a sexual encounter, there is that nagging feeling of malaise, not being satisfied. And the person won’t be until he or she feels the real need in its exact early context. Every so-called fulfillment, every affair, after the time of the critical emotional window when need had to be fulfilled is, by definition, a symbolic fulfillment. That is why it is not really satisfying. Remember, that need in the first months of life meant survival as an intact human being. It had to be gated and repressed. Meanwhile, the feeling/need circulates in a sort of reverberating circuit seeking connection and never making it. If it were not symbolic, then one love affair should be satisfying.

That is why all compulsive behavior has to be repeated time and again. It doesn’t matter if its food, pain-killers or sex. Need dominates. It is a way of papering over pain. And because it is a temporary palliative, like a tranquilizer, it has to be done ad infinitum. Of course there are any number of other reasons. But many marital guide books cover those. It is just the imprint that is missing.

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5 comments:

  1. AnonymousDecember 4, 2008 at 11:19 PM

    As a person with BPD (self-diagnosed) and former primal patient I am interested in recent studies using oxytocin nasal spray treatment to (artificially) kick start a reconnection with the world. Liquid trust. You describe different scenarios in this post where trust is betrayed, each party acting out their own hidden needs, relationship be damned. I wonder if there isn't some "seeking out an oxytocin fix" component in common for the act outs?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Arthur JanovDecember 15, 2008 at 1:11 PM

    wWhat it seems to me is that all of us are constantly trying to normalize. We take tranquilizers to boost serotonin when we lack enough of it and you may be right that we need an oxytocin fix from time to time. Good work. dr. janov

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dr.Pramod MennenNovember 29, 2009 at 10:51 PM

    I do agree on the comparison with tranquilisers because some of us are in a constant need of stimulation, in need of different things ,and need to change.However,marital infidelity and lack of marital love does not make a great comparison.True,unfulfilled love can make a person be on the constant quest for this unfulfilled need.But that does not explain cases of infidelity where people had a loving atmospher while growing up.
    Dr.Pramod Mennen
    Homeopathy Physician

    ReplyDelete
  4. Arthur JanovNovember 30, 2009 at 10:45 AM

    What do you all think? AJ

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousNovember 23, 2011 at 11:08 AM

    your statement about a girl/woman's falling for anyone who gives her some attention due to lack of love from her father grows old fast. Or maybe that is how women were purposely raised so to make them subservient as many in our society just see them as objects and not even actual people. As evidenced by whatever country it is that after the husband dies the women used to sit themselves on a pile of sticks and light them to perish.

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Review of "Beyond Belief"

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Quotes for "Life Before Birth"

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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Editor