The question is, “Why I am writing all of this? What difference will it make? Am I drowning the fish? Without appearing too dramatic I think it can be a matter of life and death. And Primal Therapy a matter of life!
An article reported in Science Daily (Oct. 7, 2009) indicates that those who had trauma while being carried and after in childhood died on the average 20 years earlier than those who did not have those risk factors. The average age of death, according to the Center for Disease Control, (David W. Brown) was sixty; not long enough and not close to the age 79 of the non-risk group. What the study showed was that those children exposed to six or more risk factors were at “double the risk of premature death.” Lack of love, that is, lack of fulfillment of need very early on, can be fatal. (see also, The American Journal of Preventive Medicine. November, 2009)
The risk factors included: living in a household with subtance abuse, witnessing domestic violence, a battered mother and its effect on the fetus, verbal and physical abuse, mental illness in the home, parents who were separated or divorced. Any of one these is powerful enough to create life-long damage. This is data from over 17,000 adults.
Lifetime trauma exposure to the mother was very important. Was she, while carrying, under stress?
Dr. Janov,
ReplyDeletewhat is hindering people to seek PT?
I fear, it is fear it self, which is grater than the lack of money or any other reason for not seeking therapy that heals trauma. Are people afraid to discover themselves? Or, are they so use to the century old destructive pain, that they cannot live without it?
A 26 year old mother (sexually abused at age 4) with a 14 day old baby rather goes back to work to buy new SUV, instead of staying at home and breast feeding her newborn. She is reading all your material but claims not to have the money to see you. Another goes on a expensive vacation so he can feel a bit better for a week or so, but they would not spend a penny to get really well.
Others love to see every week their cognitive therapist, to get a refill on sugar water, or get another belly rub, that will last until the next session.
I know a person who spent in 20 years a fortune seeing a (cognitive) therapist. She is not willing to make an appointment with you. Are these people “therapy junkies”?
What will it take to convince these neurotic people, that healing is better than keeping on managing the pain. I’m out of answers.
Sieglinde
Well Sieglinde I suggest you ask in depth to these people why they won't come. art janov
ReplyDeleteIt's easy. They won't come because they don't want a lizard in their brain. In software, we can write programs that don't fail, but customers are never interested in that either.
ReplyDeleteWalden
Maybe they're afraid of real change which is what primal therapy is about, right? Maybe people who avoid PT want a therapy that gives them the parental attention they crave from childhood rather than reality. But ultimately and then again who really does want reality?
ReplyDeleteWill, great that you are thinking of doing primal therapy. I hope you do. I don't think of primal therapy in a negative way. I think of my pain in a negative way, and I think of the Primal Center as my dumping ground where I can offload all my pain. We are living in a golden age. We are surrounded by everything we need. When we get rid of our pain, we have the opportunity to enjoy what should be described as utopia. Sorry if I'm sounding like a religious cult member....but it's true. Golden opportunity.
ReplyDeleteFor what it’s worth I do think what you say has had a big impact on people even if they don’t necessarily come to primal therapy. There are many people who take you’re views to heart when having children, with the knowledge that what they are giving their children will be a better life than the one they have had. In my own example, I would say that my children are much healthier mentally and emotionally than I was. The family that I grew up in was much different than the one I have given them. My family was full of many of the things that you mentioned. None of which exist in their lives. On the other hand, there are many people who seemed determined to make things as unreal as possible, unfortunately many of them are in positions of authority in the medical establishment.
ReplyDeletePeople who know about PT, who need it yet do not do it are just not ready yet. They are still looking for a painless way out. I know because I used to be one of them. I have several friends in long-term conventional therapy and/or on daily psych meds. I have mentioned to them my experiences with PT and how it has worked for me and how it has profoundly changed my life. I have even (unwisely perhaps) confronted them on occasion with feedback pointing out clear signs that what they are doing isn't working. Without exception they angrily dismiss my points with utter nonsense and then pretty much tell me to go F myself. This has caused me to reflect on how I ended up in PT: because nothing else worked. I tried everything under the sun and in the end all of them were merely coping mechanisms that probably would have sufficiently helped me to "tough out" the rest of my life. But for me this was not enough. I knew I could survive my miserable life, but what would be the point of that? Has evolution brought conscious life down through countless millennia so that it's finest creation, human life, can suffer? Do we exist to be born under punches, reared with indifference and left to struggle for the rest of our lives in a loveless, painful battle for mere survival?
ReplyDeleteThe person who finds Primal Therapy and sees it through is a person who answers that question by saying "Hell no!"
If I have to swim across an ocean of tears and feel the abominable pain of years of mistreatment and neglect to reclaim my life, to reclaim my true self, then by God that's what I'll do.
But I must say that even after many PT sessions I'm still not where I want to be. I've come a long way and I'm grateful to Art & PT but still, I am 48 and I still don't know what people mean when they say "I am in love." I am hoping to find out before I die. Thanks Art, for giving me a fighting chance.
Good Lord: You are very welcome. art janov
ReplyDeleteNow I have a name for this unbearable pain I have had all my life and live with daily.
ReplyDelete