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.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
On Dying and Death
Why not deal with death in this blog? I have but I will add a bit. I have seen patients who have an inordinate fear of death; not the normal kind but the kind that says, “I am going to die right now!”. That’s what happens in anxiety attacks; that feeling of gloom and doom. Why? Because it was true but not true now. You were going to die before the defenses stepped in and blocked the feeling. It was imprinted and is now a permanent memory. That is what an anxiety attack is: I will die now! If you have leaky gates that feeling is close up to the top awareness all of the time, which accounts for frequent anxiety attacks and that sensation of immediate death. It was immediate and is now in our imprinted feeling mass, I call it our apperceptive mass.
What can we do about it? Feel it and put it back in the past in context so it’s no longer immediate and constantly scary. We need to feel why we were about to die; most likely lack of oxygen at birth, a drinking or drug-taking carrying mother or a mother terrorized all along her pregnancy, either from internal reasons or fear of her husband and his violence. No matter the source it is now installed permanently in the offspring, and the minute her defenses are weak, death approaches; that is, history surges forth, real memory, not some ephemeral wisp of the past. If there were no immediate threat of death originally, there will be none now. But life in the womb and at birth are often the most perilous of our lives, and it is then and there that pure terror resides. Terror is a memory that lives inside of anxiety and propels it. We call it anxiety but it still that terror of dying. We feel it like it is now because in the memory it is now, not later. It is the memory that is coming up intact.
If you want some advice from someone who had it, don’t think about because it is inevitable and think about life if you can. If your history forces you to focus on the past terror then you have to get rid of it, reliving that past fully. It is the best I can offer.
Dr Art,
ReplyDeleteWhy me have this sensations of dying right now, only when I sleep and especially in time when I am waking up? Did you have patients with this symptom, like me? This question is not just for me, but for all people who eventually have this state?
Nenad
it's exactly the feeling we can have sometimes in a nightmare "I'm going to die right now" and we wake up in sweats, the heart beating fast. I get that feeling too often during a flight when the airplane makes unexpected moves...
ReplyDeleteI read that repeated water boarding can cause deep trauma/splits since it brings one to the point of panic and death many times, leaving nice scars, so to speak.
ReplyDeleteBut as to the purpose and meaning of life, or whether it ever had a purpose, I probably can not say anything here.
But human nature does seem to want to live forever and not die, ever. It is interesting to ponder and many philosophers have dared to do such things. Just saying ;-)
I have met so many people who I would describe as living in a "dark world" with an underlying morbidity flavour to them. Maybe a lot of that is the "death imprint" from the times you speak of, Art. My point is that the Reaper for these people--and maybe all of us to a given degree--seems to be always there.
ReplyDeleteYann: And the feeling in a dream/nightmare is always right, which is why we always go for it during therapy and never the content, which is irrelevant. art
ReplyDeleteNenad: I am not sure how to answer because I cannot understand your language. Most of those who came near death in the womb or at birth have this sensation. AJ
ReplyDeleteDr. Janov,
ReplyDeleteThe reality of death is all around us. Its a part of life.
Because we live, we cannot avoid mortality, death. The ones close to death at birth relive the same feelings, struggle and panic the same way over and over again. I’m one of them.
However, it is amazing how self-preservation makes us go on in spite of the threat of death.
As at birth, the same pattern of panic appears in the present, the grasping for air and my removing everything from around my neck (necklace, turtleneck etc), the breathing flat, shutting the system down to a minimum, just to survive.
I experienced this feeling in 2009. My cerebellum was squeezed by the skull, which affected my breathing and heart rate. This triggered memories of my birth, struggling for air, waiting for my heart to stop skipping beats. Nevertheless, as at birth, I did everything to survive. It is amazing how much we like to live.
Reaching deep down to the original feeling of death, reliving the treacherous moment again cannot be done alone... I tried, I can’t go deep enough without help.
Sieglinde
Steve Jobs
ReplyDelete2005 Stanford Commencement Speech:
My third story is about death
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes. I lived with that diagnosis all day.
Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now. This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades.
Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.
Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Steve Jobs
Art, perhaps you'd care to reflect here on your own passing; will France carry on without you? will the Center and the Institute somehow merge? post AJ, what happens to PT?
ReplyDeleteGrumpy: I think I will pass on that one. David Lassoff will certainly carry it on. He has mastered this therapy. The center and the Institute will not merge since what we do is very different. art
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDelete-" I have met so many people who I would describe as living in a "dark world" with an underlying morbidity flavour to them "-.
I am a recovering one of these. Many of us end up on construction sites taking big risks smiling in the face of hazard with humour inherited from the Dark Ages. Some become soldiers and die gruesome deaths. I love an Axe to Grind.
Most of it is unrepeatable and highly contextual. In Europe we've made an art form of it, look at Hogarth from the 18th C. and Gerald Scarfe from the 20th C. Not to mention Breugal from the 15th C.
Death is plastered all over life and the dead will always outnumber the living!
Long Live Death! (It'll be the life of me).
Paul G.
Dr. Janov,
ReplyDeleteThe three most important sentences Steve Jobs said:
"Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."
I recently wrote to a friend:
Most childhood abused don’t know they live the life of others because they don’t know who they are – they can’t hear their inner voice.
PT can help clearing the clutter in front of their life-window, if they decide, care enough for themselves, to get out of this co-dependent life.
Sieglinde
An email comment: "As the offspring of a diet pill taking mother who carried the fear of her abusive father I can totally relate! Beyond that, I am finally coming to grips with this realization and that my life long terrors have a logical explanation. best regards"
ReplyDelete