The Brain's Evolution and Therapy

Do you ever wonder why it is that we fall asleep in reverse order of evolution? And why we come out of it in correct order. It means, first of all, that we are prisoners of the brain’s evolution; and when we start to become consciously/aware we move to the highest level of the brain. We come out of antiquity into modern life as though we have gone through the centuries or the millennia in proper order each day in order to achieve consciousness. We do the same thing in Primal Therapy; and in doing so we must strictly obey evolutionary edicts. We can no more change that order than do so in our sleep. And when we trump that order in sleep, psychosis lurks. If we do not have enough dream (second-line limbic consciousness) sleep we suffer. And we develop physical and mental symptoms. Now what is crucial here is if we trump that order in Primal Therapy we suffer from those very same symptoms. That is why re-birthing is so dangerous; it trumps evolution. That is why cognitive therapy cannot work; it trumps the feeling areas of the brain; it forgets about evolution completely. That is why holotropic, deep breathing is dangerous; it again trumps evolution. It does not allow an orderly progression up the evolutionary ladder. Rather it stays stuck on the primitive nervous system level, (presumably the medulla of the brain stem) and does not climb the neuraxis to areas of awareness and integration. The brain is a complex proposition and to stay on any one level in therapy to the exclusion of the others means that any progress made in therapy is partial. To do reprogramming of the brain to achieve so-called “normal brainwaves” is deficient and cannot lead to cure. Because all parts of the brain are involved not just brainwaves. And those different parts control different parts of the body. That is why psychotherapy cannot work. Yes, we can get well in our heads, in the realm of ideas but that is where it stays; we think we are better but the body may betray us.

As with dream sleep, Primal Therapy enters the deep unconscious, slowly in ordered progression. But like in sleep we do not plunge immediately from current awareness down into the deepest levels of consciousness. Down on that deep level lies so many of our remote and life-and-death pains. It shows itself in our nightmares which are associated with terrible terror/anxiety states, and it is demonstrated in deep primals where just awful pains reside. What this tells us is that we are evolutionary beings who biologically must adhere to the history of mankind; there is an order to the universe of which we are part. I cannot stress this enough. We do not take patients into birth traumas in the first weeks of therapy anymore than in dream sleep we go directly into deep sleep. Evolution is an ordered affair.

Just a note to state that each new brain level in evolution helps out with survival. The brainstem and early limbic systems have everything to do with survival. Then full limbic structures continue the survival strategies, finishing up with the neocortex. As we travel through evolutionary time to the neocortex each adds its physiologic contribution. The reason that ideas cannot trump feelings is that feelings are integral to survival and we directed towards what feels good. The neocortex is also very important to survival but it is not as crucial as lower levels. This means that when we are in a coma without any cortex really working our survival functions (heart rate, blood pressure, etc), still are operational. Animals survive very well without a complex neocortex. They won’t survive if the brainstem is damaged. We have to breathe no matter what.

Each lower level of brain function is designed to keep us alive. We can use lower levels to modify higher ones but it does not work in reverse. Could you imagine if the higher level neocortex could permanently modify brainstem functions? We survive because it cannot. Thus feelings can certainly sway ideas but ideas can only suppress feelings, not eradicate them. We see in our therapy how physiology and limbic feelings directly affect ideas and beliefs. A very rapid heart rate can push someone to go and do, yet no matter how hard we try we often cannot alter the heart rate, especially the rate that is accompanied by anxiety. That is why we cannot “will” a slower heart rate over time. Ideas are hundreds of millions years away from physiological and emotional functions.

When we descend to deep unconscious levels we become conscious on that level. The unconscious is transformed into conscious. We do not become aware on a verbal level but rather we are conscious in terms of that deep level and no other. We have access to our inner states. We thereafter will not suffer from such things as a bleeding ulcer without being aware of it. Chances are, however, that we won’t suffer from such afflictions.

I remember seeing a patient who had just started therapy who told me that since he forgave his parents he felt much better; proof that ideas can trump feeling. Yet when he was measured his stress hormone levels (cortisol) never changed. Thus the neorcortex can trump what we think are feelings without ever touching feelings, per se. The neocortex is most apt at deceiving itself. It can produce the thought of being well without really being well. Ideas here function as anesthetics. In therapy we certainly don’t want to being anesthetized in order to get well.