Articles on Primal Therapy, psychogenesis, causes of psychological traumas, brain development, psychotherapies, neuropsychology, neuropsychotherapy. Discussions about causes of anxiety, depression, psychosis, consequences of the birth trauma and life before birth.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Revamping Psychology
What we need to do in psychotherapy is to rid ourselves of a class of elite cognoscenti who are the center of all psychologic knowledge. The patient is the only one who has knowledge of her unconscious. We therapists can only guess at it. When we operate on theories that are constructed out of the unconscious of psychologists rather than based on the internal reality of the patient, we become tinkering mechanics, altering our techniques more out of whimsy than science. Until now, there has been no theoretical web that encompasses both psychology and neurology, although there have been attempts to join psychoanalysis with neurology. It is, by and large, a shotgun wedding. It is the same as plastering an old outdated notion onto new science and hoping it will stick. If psychoanalysis ignores key internal realities, it doesn’t matter that we adhere certain neurologic facts to it. It cannot work. Why would we take a theory one hundred years old and join with it research that may be six months old? The marriage can’t last; the groom is far too old for the bride who has new ideas and new information. The youngster is trying to lead the old man but the old man is too feeble to keep up. Better a young theory that works within neurologic principles.
This is what I meant when I said some time ago that I can see the new psychology science being born out of the worlds of neurology, in terms of going mainstream. That is, people who are trained into a neurological outlook will be on the prowl for a fresh psychology theory that integrates with their neurology foundation.
ReplyDeleteFrom here, I can see a developing respect for Primal Theory - it's the jacket that fits. The ancient psycho-babble brigade need to fall on their swords.
Oh my God, Art, THIS IS IT!
ReplyDeleteSame topic but another aspect - Two psychotherapists, and each time it happened. OK sometimes a patient is in the dark and doesn't know why she is reacting as she is (in this instance, me), but at other times you most certainly do know what you meant, you know they actually HAVE misunderstood what you were saying this time, and yet it is always silence, followed by a brief but patient look, followed by a "Noooooo, what you meant was......what it illustrates is....." and there is sweet you know what all you can do to insist otherwise, because the shrink is right, he or she is the knowledgeable one, God descended, studied years and years, practiced even longer, so KNOWS it ALL blah blah blah.
End of story. You sit there with no chance to say anything. Stupid 'girl' its you who has it wrong every time(ha!). If lucky(?) you may be allowed to say something whilst being again looked at with both tolerance and a vague and polite interest.
So what do you do? What can you do? Yup, get up and leave. Walk out and away. End of therapy. Goodbyeeeee to all that money spent. Possibly back where you started. Short rest, feel crap, look for a new therapist. Same old Same old. Its enough to make you want to slit your little throat :)
Thank God for primal therapy, and thank you. Thank you!
An email comment:"Good critique. You could be addressing that monster of a chimera known as neuropsychoanalysis.
ReplyDeleteI recommend you read Animals in Translation, by Temple Grandin. Grandin is an autistic woman who designs housing for livestock and knows the minds of animals better than normal people. It's because her brain works like their brains.
There's a passage in her book where she describes animals as having simple, straightforward feelings -- they never have conflicting feelings like adult humans do. Autistic people also have simple, straightforward feelings -- they say what they mean and can't repress feelings. Animals and autistics don't have highly functional frontal cortices to fog things up. What you see is what you get.
That's why primal works. You descend down into the animal brain and have simple, straightforward feelings. The frontal cortex sits there quietly, letting the feelings come up and making sense of them from the bottom up. We become more like animals in primal, or like children, who have the same simplicity.
Cortically imprisoned psychologists only have a functioning cortex and try to make sense of feeling from the top down, which is like trying to feed yourself up the a-hole. It's backwards. But they'll never get it, not even those who want to get it. Instead, they build edifices of words - lengthy tomes suitable for weight lifting. Think Alan Schore."
And my answer: I think I read Grandin. I should have t he book here somewhere. Also a good critique. I think the more astounding realization beyond primal is how 200,000 shrinks manage to avoid the truth. Isn't that amazing? art
ReplyDeleteAn email comment:"Dr. Janov- Psychoanalysis studies ideational and emotional patterns, which do exist. Your approach is to purge ones self of pain using feeling as a guide. Both seem great to me! While your point about the healing power of making unconscious pain, conscious is well taken, the leap to "everything else is a waste of time" seems a bit like throwing the baby out with the bath water. It's all good."
ReplyDeleteHi, I feel the remarks Art has made about psychotherapy are best summarised in the two ideas that (1) psychological pain repressed makes us ill in many different ways and the purpose of repression is to protect us from over-reaction in the short term. His 2nd idea that psychotherapy should therefore have as it's main aim the uncovering and full re-integration of the traumatic experiences (via conscious re-living them) holds very watertight.
ReplyDeleteMy third idea (I don't care if it's Arts' or not) is that everything else is actually a distraction from these two watertight ideas. I have concluded "everything else is a waste of Human Potential" because most people really are looking for a cure to their problems, I do not believe in the "Horses for Courses" theory in which we supposedly choose the therapy that suits our particular personality.
Personality is not Essence and Essence cannot grow if it is sidetracked whilst personal ideas become the new mantra. The other therapies nearly all have some sort of "Ideational Mantra". which only boosts personality at the expense of Esssence. It's just pure bollocks!
And yes that is a technical term.
Paul G.
Art: This is one of your best blogs, as far as I am concerned. That the medical, psychological and neurological profession has ignored Primal Theory for so long says it all.
ReplyDeleteNot totally sure why this was the case in view of the fact that "The Primal Scream" became a best seller, BUT suspect that had they looked at it ... and been convinced; you would have rocked the capitalist system right out of existence. That, they were not going to allow, on any pretext ... unless you had given current psychologist permission to practice Primal Therapy from just reading your book. Sadly, this has become your legacy, even though I felt at the time, and do so to this day, that you were right to prevent the uninitiated to practice Primal Therapy.
No amount of reasoning, be it scientific or otherwise is NOT going to shift this dynamic. Neurotic humans will never see the necessity to discuss feelings and its expression: too elusive for them to get their brains around (and sadly by my reckoning) some of your commentators. Sadly Art; and I am reluctant to say this, you are whistling in the wind.
Jack
"seems a bit like throwing the baby out with the bath water"
ReplyDeletePrimal Therapy is the baby. Everything else is the bath water. You can study a patient's ideational and emotional patterns.....or you can let him discover his own feelings and then his own thoughts. The primal solution is much smarter, and it's the only one that provides real evidence of success.
Paul: Isn't it wonderful and reassuring to be so sure? art
ReplyDeleteNeurosis is off course that most insidious of diseases, that almost perfect master of disguise. So in a sense it is not the 200,000 shrinks that you are fighting against Art, it is their neuroses perfectly camouflaged to provide them with the appearance of utter normality. But such is the nature of the disease, in my opinion, that it protects itself at all costs, wears a mask of invisibility and leaves most of us totally blind to its very existence. That was the fight you took on when you began Primal Therapy, probably the hardest fight of all and I admire you all the more for it. I hope it is a fight that humanity can win, but given the nature of the disease, I am doubtful.
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Steve
Actually Art I am besides myself with surprise at how I cope with all the daft and bizarre failure in my sorry life. Now that I know my pain, now that I feel it. It sounds so crass to the uninitiated doesn't it? I am really surprised at the 'level playing field in my mind' that I now seem to have.
ReplyDelete"Object constancy" I think they call it. The problem with repressed pain is that it distorts what we thought was our objective view.
Without us knowing it. This is an endless source of fascination if all you are interested in is the 'psycho-analytical' reflection, as I was.
Paul G.