Thursday, December 29, 2011

On the Right and Left Brain. There Is No Cure Without Their Unity. (Part 3/10)



Let’s be sure that we don’t mean awareness. It means experiencing and feeling it. It means having the original feeling again. And that is the difference. Awareness keeps us on the left no matter how hard we want to get to feelings. So if I tell a patient, “You know what feelings you have hidden? A lot of fear.” And she says, ”Yeah, I guess so. Thanks for the information.” That is the end of it. No help. Or if the doctor tells the patient, “explain your feelings.” All is lost because the left brain was used to discuss and explain when it should have first been the right brain. Defying evolution will never get us there. If you think before feeling you still may be out of control; if you feel before thinking you are in control. If I know what is causing my migraines I can get control. If I don’t know I have no control.

Yes, one can do behavior therapy and drive away the symptom which makes the person sicker because she is deprived of an outlet. If she cannot check the gas jets twenty times a day she suffers and is full of fear. The obsession is exactly like taking a tranquilizer. It makes the symptom tranquil but it remains unrelenting because the feeling is. When there is a generalized terror set down at birth or before, (see “Primal Healing” for a full explanation), it stays locked-in. The act out is checking gas jets, and they must be checked many times a day to keep the low-level fear from becoming explosive terror. Now the left brain does not know there is terror forcing the act-out; it just goes on happily with its obsession. And, then the person can reason--after all, it is not so bad. The obsession binds the feeling; thus, the left brain surrounds the right feeling and places a barrier around it; that barrier is in many places, including the corpus callosum.

Yet this person decides to have therapy, not because he suffers but because his wife told him to as she could not stand it any more. They could not go out to dinner until all the jets were checked over and over. So he goes to a therapist who focuses on the act-out, not the cause. Those gas jets. He won’t get well, although his left brain will engage in a constant struggle to control his act out. The inner pressure remains and will be deadly, in the literal form of the word. When he feels what is on the right he has control at last.

And he won’t change until we help him descend to the origins of the terror, in context. And that has to be done slowly over months, one pain at a time; one lesser pain leading to more heavy ones as we progress deeper in therapy. The primal context is that devilish right brain, all disguised and hidden. Yet only it knows about the terror. There is such a gap between the deep feeling and what it forces the obsessive to do that neither she nor her therapist can make the connection. So what are they left to do? Keep on treating the obsession as a viable entity all by itself, ad infinitum. The left brain has extracted its meaning from the origin. It is a therapy of fragmentation, of splitting the patient off from his symptom. It is inhuman and de-human.

Now we have the intellectual left and the emotional right. When we consider having psychotherapy the left chooses cognitive while the right seeks out gestalt (a kind of free-for-all of do whatever you want approach). Those with intrusion of pain may seek us out. We search out whatever will reinforce our neurosis. Let me quickly add that there can be no real progress in any psychotherapy without the active participation in full of both hemispheres. We cannot get well on one side of the brain while the other stays sick. We cannot avoid the pain and feelings that drive us from almost conception on and hope to be rid of anxiety, phobias and depression. The right holds all those secrets; it is up to the left to make the first step toward a rapprochement with it. This is not intellectual theorizing; what I state has a good deal of research behind it, including any number of split-brain experiments that tell us the function of each side.



(To learn more start with Drs Joe Bogen and Roger Sperry’s split-brain work).

Historically, the reason the left hemisphere gets so active when there is stored pain is that it has to suppress it so that it can get on with its job of concentrating on the outside world, the job, school, etc. The right, too, tries to contain overwhelming feelings so that the left can do its job properly. But when it is filled up it needs help, and it turns leftward for help and connection; alas, the left is absent because it has all these meetings and projects and places to go. It can’t be bothered. The left seeks out success when the only real success is to be a feeling human being who can love and be loved. And the busy man comes to therapy and wants action. But he soon finds out that his left brain has to slow down into the feeling zone and that it must accede to the right brain, something it is not used to. The patient complains of constant difficulty in falling asleep. His lower right level has long nerve networks reaching upward that drive the frontal thinking area to be activated; hence, the rumination—on the left. It cannot let go and allow the right to fall asleep. And it goes on and on because the right brain has been neglected. The pain is saying, “let me out,” but the left won’t do it. And so the symptom. The pain has to go somewhere. And then we treat that pain, the back, neck and stomach, because we did not treat the real pain. Is it really only about pain? No, it is about joy, love and contentment but the only way to get there is over the bridge to the pain on the right brain. Then it is real.

When defenses are weak (when life deals some cruel blows), there can be a breakthrough of deep imprinted terror, and the person claims she is having a panic or anxiety attack. Here the feeling is uncontrolled and uncontained; it has no special context for the moment until the patient takes the vehicle out of storage and rides back in time. The left has to cede hegemony to the right and let it take over, something it is not used to doing. Feelings can lead us to the truth, and that is why we can have such insights as a result because the left now knows what that hidden feeling made her do. The left now knows exactly what circumstances lead to her high blood pressure or his exhibitionism. And the insights flow effortlessly. “I have to show my penis so I can get an emotional reaction (shock)from a woman.” The post session insights are very much part of the primal experience, tying the two sides tightly together. No insights no feelings. Not every time but often.



Let me add in the case of the exhibitionist that before the insights there are many many days of feeling. “I tried every day to get my mother’s attention. She was too depressed to pay attention.” He relived many of these scenes and then the key feeling, “Look at me momma! Please!” To try to have an intellectual insight without all the preceding events and feelings is useless. It remains intellectual, does not seep into the system to make changes.

Let me reiterate: the feeling is experienced; the rape victim invariably creates the same bound hands together during a primal,(her father held her hands as he took her from behind), and she now sees what it made her do. She was hostile to men and became a lesbian. (This is from an actual case that we have filmed). She only felt safe with women. These are the insights that tumble out after a feeling. If she cannot have the insights, then perhaps there was not yet a connected feeling. Perhaps more was dredged up that has yet to be felt and connected. In other words, if there are no insights we are bereft of understanding the act-outs. It is as if to say there were no consequences from a disastrous feeling. And as I noted elsewhere, the earlier and feeling the greater the chance of a serious affliction later on. The valence or force of the imprint never lessens; the left side just covers it up better. So we see here how the obsession with the gas jet and the turn to lesbianism may have the same roots. It is behavior in an unconscious attempt to control a past harmful and traumatic feeling. So in a way, neurosis is the current way we control the past. The only problem is that in the present it remains out of context. It was appropriate to be afraid of father in the past but not normal now to be afraid of authority figures. It is logical but not normal.

So why are there attention deficits? Because the right which is charged with sustained attention is so loaded with pain that it off-loads some of its burden to the left. Now all kinds of inputs are coming in to disturb concentration and focus. The right cannot do its job. Remember that the very early trauma is lodged in the right and takes up space there, and above all, it constantly agitates because pain is driving it incessantly. It needs to connect with the left, and the neo-cortex but the gates stop it. Connection means the end of it as an agitating force. It means rest and relaxation; it means integration. No longer alien feelings but those who have found a home. So long as they are alien the system treats it as a foreign force and considers it as an invading stranger. When the feelings come too close to conscious-awareness the system goes into alarm mode; the white cells treat the feeling as alien and dangerous and the blood pressure and heart rate mount. The happens to almost every patient when they come close to deeply-lodged feelings. The left sounds the alarm when feelings come close and the system goes into alarm/panic mode; mobilizes to keep it all away, while gating swings into action. It stimulates evasive action, avoiding anything that will evoke feelings.

Those who had a harridan for a mother will avoid aggressive women in their lives. Most of us avoid whatever might set off alien feelings; and so in a way we are programmed. Those who had a tyrannical father may become obsequious in the face of male authority in order to stave off anger. The latent fear is already so high that the person cannot take any more. We can tell ourselves—the right self, not to be afraid but it is a weak force against a lifetime of terror; in the same way we can tell our selves not to eat chocolate when the imprint of starvation in the womb hidden on the right is importuning. The left is no match for the imprints on the right. They are always packing more power than the left, as they should; it is our emotional self. So we have an emotional self, an intellectual self and finally, a real self…united. It is that real self that can control things such as overeating or premature ejaculation. Why overeating? Because there is a history underlying it. He is eating out of his history. He is not only hungry now but back then—starving in the womb. He is trying to get fulfilled back then, as well. The same as trying to get love now to make up for no love as a child. Fulfillment is sine qua non; it cannot be forgotten so one is always looking for fulfillment in one way or the other. It is the left that takes need from the right and tries to find ways to get fulfillment, and it is always symbolic because the left side is basically the symbolic side. It wants more and more money because he cannot feel any fulfillment. The left brain sees the steak and the right brain rushes in with its history of starvation or deprivation to make the person eat for both times…..that is over-eating. The intellectual self has no emotional wallop by itself; that is why it is so weak in the face of powerful feelings. So there is sexual stimulation with the resulting premature ejaculation because the early pain is so heavy and the controlling left brain so weak.

For therapists, what the patient says is put into context by the right so that the doctor can also read the emotional subtext of what is going on. In other words, the doctor is not just listening to words but emotions. The left brain needs to hear words and cannot make decisions until he hears the right words. It cannot suss out what is an appropriate move without them. For example, when president Bush was told the Twin Towers were bombed he could not react immediately. He could not feel what was the right thing to do. So he waited, waiting for instructions so his left brain could decide what to do.

It would seem that deep depression is another one of those right brain imprints that never quite make it to upper level left connection; and so the malady lives on untouched by conscious/awareness. Repression of feelings set in so early that we come to think that depression is some kind of alien, unknowable force. We feel “heavy” because the deep powerful imprints are being held down, and we cannot seem to lift the burden. We are literally carrying a load—of pain. These imprints are all nonverbal and exceptionally early. They are almost unreachable except with a therapy that can get down that deep. No intellectual therapy can touch it; which is why there is widespread use of tranquilizers in conventional therapy. Imagine how far the imprint has to travel to reach the higher left brain cortical canopy and make a connection. Then the therapist says, “tell me how you feel.” All is lost because it is preverbal and nonverbal and cannot be expressed in words.

A little example from my life: someone is writing the story of my life. And so he went pretty far to interview one of my shipmates on the battleship we were on together. My pal recounted the story of a Japanese submarine that came up to the surface and was trying to ram us. Then we and another destroyer fired on the sub and sank it. I have no memory of all this, and I was standing on the gun station next to my pal. How is it possible that I do not remember and never did, except small snippets? I wasn’t there. I was in my past and my terror without cease. Where is my past? I have no idea. But I do know that my left side was not properly registering events. I may have seen what I saw but the left side did not acknowledge it and so I have no memory; and it bothers me no end that my life went by unconsciously. I was unconscious of my life; and it happens over and over again that friends tell me about high school and I have no memory of it. I was so deep in the hold of my early painful imprints that I was never there in the present in my childhood.



Just because the patient is unconscious doesn’t mean the doctor has to be. The doctor needs to know about the right brain and what it holds. When it is ignored any therapy that follows must be misleading. The doctor needs to know about how prenatal events get imprinted on the right and what they do to the left. Above all, the doctor needs herself to be connected.



One might wonder why I believe the force of the imprint never lessens even when we are sixty years old? Because in the reliving the force is there with all of its power, and the blood pressure, body temperature and heart rate climb to monumental proportions.

We don’t need to study brain damage to understand the contribution of each hemisphere because neurosis and the disengagement from the two hemispheres can explain so much. In other words, neurosis is very much like brain damage without there being damage, only dysfunction, which is reversible. That is the good part. We can be disconnected neuro-physiologically through destroyed or damaged tissue, or we can be disconnected through gating without serious damage. The result, however, is the same. One side doesn’t know what is going on in the other side.



I have left-brain friends, super-intellectuals who remember everything about their lives, dates, times and places. They are devoid of feelings but their memory is intact. If you had to make a choice what would you choose?

The two brains are symbiotic; and if you get into a therapy that does not fully account for that symbiosis it cannot work.Cognitive/behavior/insight therapy cannot get us deeply into the right side, while Reichian, Gestalt, hypnosis and other similar therapies miss out on the left. It is not like a choice they all make; their brains won’t allow it.

I will use myself to explain all this: I was always a right brainer. My mother while carrying was pre-psychotic, and the day I was born I was given over to my grandmother. When she killed herself my mother then went to a mental hospital and shipped my sister and I off separately for quite a long time to strange families. I never could recover from this and began a lifelong anxiety state that never stopped until Primal. I had serious ADD and ould not concentrate nor read anything complex. I could not pay attention and had to move constantly in class. I had serious image problems; very low self esteem. I was imprinted on the right and was dominated by it; there wasn’t enough left brain development to help repress feelings. Agitation on the right did not permit it. So there was a constant flow of pain from the right that decimated the left side function. I had constant nightmares and was terrified of going to sleep. I did badly in high school and never ever thought of any intellectual pursuit like going to college. But, in the navy I took an intelligence test and scored high, so high I was taken off my ship in mid-pacific and sent to university to study. I got straight A’s and realized “I can do this.” I then went to college and got serious about it. But it was not until Primal that I shook my anxiety, ADD, nightmares and the rest. Now after many decades I can think, and think abstractly. I can plan for the distant future, starting a book that will take years to finish.



The Primal Scream was a right brain piece, full of feeling. It took decades until I could use the left side to embellish my work and include serious science into it. I think now both sides are equal and work in harmony. Not easy. I could finally develop the left side because I got rid of all that garbage that was infiltrating into it from the right. As long as the right was overloaded there could be no harmony. And memory never made it to the left to be etched there permanently. The right had a terrible burden, and needed help. I discovered the help and gave it to myself. I invented, rather discovered, a therapy and could finally could make a marriage of the two sides and they get along famously. I can get to sleep easily because I can cede the left side to the right and get below the constant rumination and nightmares. And I can concentrate very well indeed. Apart from the damage surgeons did on my throat I am in perfect health; all systems working fine. I don’t think that is an accident. I use my case in order to illustrate all this for others.

THE RIGHT LEFT BRIDGE


There is major bridge connecting the two hemispheres; actually, there are several bridges (commissures) but the main one is called the corpus callosum; it carries over eighty percent of all emotional information to the left side. It has two functions: one, to carry information from right to left and back again; and two, to block information from right to left and back again. And why would it block information? When it means a lot of pain, more than the left/awareness can tolerate. Then we rationalize, “God will take care of a everything.”

When in our therapy the gates open up and the information passes through from right to left the patient is in pain. Happily, not for long. Once joined there is finally a way to relax; there is harmony and a mutual understanding. When the two sides make their contribution the patient is being integrated and on her way to getting well. And in our brain research there is a greater equilibrium between the two hemispheres.

The distance between our feelings/pain and our conscious/awareness of it I call the Janovian Gap. The wider the gap between right and left brains the sicker we may be and the earlier we may die, at least in my theoretical scheme. The two hemispheres are working against each other instead of in harmony with one another. The gap really is the distance between the right and left brain; how much information is allowed to traverse the corpus callosum (I call hereafter I call the corpus). When there is a wide gap there is an internecine battle going on. The loser is us. That gap often forces us to smoke and drink and take drugs. That is why the strict intellectual, and I know many in my field, has got to fall sick in his or her later life. And that sickness is often cancer. I wish this were just theory. I am at the age of having lost many friends. I see what they die of and I am rarely surprised. The right-siders, the impulsives, due to leaky gates, in my opinion, most often die of a stroke as the pain bursts through without sufficient control. Here the left side is weak.

37 comments:

  1. Hi,
    -"Hi Andrew,

    -"BTW: May I suggest you make the rule that everyone titles the content/description of their posts so readers can choose whether or not they're interested in reading it. Just efficiency thing"-?

    I say Andrew, forgive me for my challenging observation but having just pointed out how true freedom and humanity can get bulldozed (usually by the very systems set up to promote these worthy causes) you then suggest Art enforces labelling our contributions with titles so we can "choose" not to read others' contributions before reading them.

    What you are suggesting, I am sure, would utterly dehumanise this blog and in the end no one, including you would want to contribute any more.

    Furthermore, I guess, Art writes his posts partly because he (and a small team of scrutinisers) read all the contributions and are themselves inspired by what they wade through and some of this filters into Arts' next posts.

    The end result (in California) is thus the beginning (around the world) for us. You could call this process "Sustainable Creative Group Writing".

    But God (or Art) forbid that I put a f*****g label on it! We 'children' of Art (!) 'need' each other and we 'need' to attend to what others say even if we don't really like the things they/ we are saying! ! ! Anyway, I can scan read, so can you.

    Keep up the good work Andrew because I for one get a kick out of your contributions. This one not least of all!

    Paul G.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Art,

    -"Those with intrusion of pain may seek us out"-.

    And:

    -"The right-siders, the impulsives, due to leaky gates, in my opinion, most often die of a stroke as the pain bursts through without sufficient control. Here the left side is weak"-.

    Well, I reckon that's me and fortunately I may actually make it to the clinic before I explode in the face of some crass stupidity (possibly even my own) and die prematurely.

    Paul G.

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  3. Art,

    About the unity.
    When we begin to experience the intensity… the horror when we are left by some ... someone that we "think"… think we need to be loved by ... then there is an emotional leakage… leakage as horrible to an adult as then as a child.
    When we are left by the one we think we love but that is a missing ... a cemented experience ever since then we was left alone… alone in our need… need that meant life… to live otherwise die. What a horrible experience for a child to hold… that is way we neglect that feeling… we would have died in all senses if we could not shut it off.
    This is way we now will live dead in sense of feeling… we become a thinker as survivor. That is not difficult to understand when we relive this horrific memory. All anxiety and depression belongs to our childhood… that includes schizophrenia as well… my planted in our mother’s pregnancy. Art I believe that schizophrenia as well can be planted after we are born… sometime I can feel that horrific experience… an experience that also shot me of.

    Frank

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  4. More about the unity.

    When we masturbate in secret hidden from the visible ... in secret we release. Exebetionism where we hide behind to be for someone else because it is too painful to approach need to be loved etc... a behavior that has taken form because of pain… pain for the need of love... then it is not difficult to understand that the feeling for the behavior is lacking and it leaks out because consciousness is missing ... the feeling to be the cherished little creature we are as small.

    Frank

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  5. Paul: Alas, I have no team of scrutinizers. art

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi,

    Does this mean Art, that you are the living proof that Primal helps people (even men) multi task?

    At the moment I'm trying to do my accounts and there is so much interference from my right brain that I can't concentrate. . . In my defence I have one of those nasty man flu viruses as well (as breaking down periodically).

    Does any body else on this blog get ADHD or PTSD symptoms exaggerated by a cold virus infection?

    I seem to.


    Paul G.

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  7. Frank,

    how true, so very very true. And some of us find lovers to reject us, and we, like them, just like each other, hide and feel alone, where it is safe. Subconsciously we are drawn to loneliness because it's a safe place to hide.

    Paul G.

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  8. Hello Art (and fellow primal-ers),

    Thanks for your continued writings and also thanks to those of you who leave comments here. I find support in them after having my whole being turned upside-down (for the better!) by primal therapy. It has been difficult to keep hold of myself in the social sphere I live in and the words here have become my special little corner of reality that speaks honestly to me in a confusing world.

    One thing I was wondering (and the Holiday season has really accentuated this): Does anybody else here find that primal therapy has been a mixed blessing? Does anybody find that it has changed them so profoundly that they find themselves alienated from and nearly unable to connect meaningfully with their social world? I feel that the closer I get to being my real self, the further I get away from my friends and family. I find that being around them is less and less enjoyable due to this lack of connection, in some cases to the point where I feel it may even be harmful for me to spend too much time with them. I catch myself despairing in my failed efforts to connect to them the way I wish to and at times have unconsciously fallen into my old patterns of playing the "when in Rome" game. And then I regret it later because I feel I have sold out my truer instincts, not to mention going too far into boozing it up with them. It's almost like I am at a crossroads of sorts. My social world is large and vibrant-- there are many opportunities to meet new people and it has come to mean a lot to me. I am loathe to abandon it, even partially. More distressing still, this "stranger in a strange land" dilemma manifests itself similarly within the few romantic possibilities that come my way.

    Does anybody else contend with this?

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  9. Hi Dr Janov

    Your description of you not remembering standing next to your pal when the submarine was sunk rang many bells for me. I have great gaps in my memory. I think I was more left Brained than I am now as I think so much pain leapt out in 2005 that my left Brain shut down in a way perhaps? Very confusing. For example I used to be sble to read complex stuff and now I think I have ADD or dyslexia. It seems to be coming back a bit now though. I'm sleeping better and feel less anxious. The fact that I can remember people's names is so exciting though a small thing. I would think that pain is nearer the surface and I have to deal with that. Obviously the Zeroxat I was on had pushed the Pain deeper down and so when I came off it rushed to the surface.

    Really fascinating

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  10. Art,

    I've been meaning to say that I've got a lot out of your blogs over the last 4-5 months, particularly talking about your experiences as a child & growing up. It's been quite a revelation ! It has helped me put my own upbringing into some sort of perspective now.

    I too was pretty open as a child - could cry easily, lose my temper & had bad dreams at night -even up into my early 20's when I had a breakdown in bed with my first girlfriend- I couldn't handle the physical contact ! I left home, moved interstate, went to art school & got depressed with low self esteem ( felt my friends/peers were more intelligent - I had had a family nickname & realize now it made me into a thing , a neuter !). An art teacher introduced me to the "Primal Scream "- this was back in 1973 here in Australia. Smoked marijuana, got into self primalling, at the time it was seen as the next best thing to coming to the Institute , but I know your view on this has changed since. About 7 years later I did mock therapy. Ideally I should have been on medication from the start & came over to the U.S.for therapy or at leat saved to come, but I was desperate, stubborn & felt it was possible. But in life you make decisions, sometimes maybe the wrong ones,sometimes maybe the right ones. In 2002 I came over to the Center for the first time, been there twice ( 3 mths & 2 mths)had phone sessions as well. I certainly don't think I would have won any awards for " Primal Patient of the Year " - if there was such a thing, fortunately there isn't !- when over there ! But on the whole, looking back, your work & writing has been pretty helpful,

    Thanks, Len.

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  11. Dear Dr. Janov,

    “Let’s be sure that we don’t mean awareness. It means experiencing and feeling it. It means having the original feeling again.”

    When I heard last night on the news (ABC News) about a man raping and killing a one month old baby, I reacted instantly/physically. I jumped from the couch and vomited. After, I had a pounding headache for about two hours and I could not sleep for another 4.
    Could this be an original (second or first line) feeling?

    Thank you for your answer,
    Sieglinde

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  12. Art said “The Primal Scream was a right brain piece, full of feeling. It took decades until I could use the left side to embellish my work and include serious science into it. I think now both sides are equal and work in harmony. Not easy. I could finally develop the left side because I got rid of all that garbage that was infiltrating into it from the right. As long as the right was overloaded there could be no harmony. The right had a terrible burden, and needed help. I discovered the help and gave it to myself. I invented, rather discovered, a therapy and could finally could make a marriage of the two sides and they get along famously. I can get to sleep easily because I can cede the left side to the right and get below the constant rumination and nightmares. And I can concentrate very well indeed. Apart from the damage surgeons did on my throat I am in perfect health; all systems working fine. I don’t think that is an accident. I use my case in order to illustrate all this for others.

    Art, I loved this article and never want you to stop writing, ever, but perhaps I am asking too much? Still, I am fascinated by the above article and in particular the words I have quoted here. It has left me with a feeling I am having trouble feeling. I guess I am trying to ask you a question which has been asked before on this forum; that is will you ever let us know how you gave yourself this help, how you gave yourself Primal therapy. Perhaps a dangerous question as many might want to try and replicate your method and give the therapy to themselves. So I will understand if you refuse but I’d love to know. Perhaps your biographer will enlighten us?

    I ask in all honesty and wish you, France and David and the rest of your team the very best for the year ahead and look forward to reading more of your posts.
    Regards
    Steve

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  13. To anonymous,
    I understand your dilemma. I've refused several proposals from friends to spend the new year's eve drinking and eating with them...I don't even know why...I just don't feel like partying tonight. I've met some of them yesterday and will in the following days. It's just the compulsory part of all that that annoys me in fact. Funny you wrote about that because that is what I'm in right now.

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  14. anonymous, you have just described my entire life. i'm not in therapy yet but i know exactly what you mean. i can't connect with people. i had ONE best friend but he went overseas. he phoned me and asked me to come over to australia but i told him i needed to continue with my music career in new zealand. i lost his number and i can't find him on the internet.
    i was the class reject when i was five. all of the kids snubbed me. nothing has changed since then. i want to be realistic but no one else does. lots of people think they like me until i refuse to play their CRAZY games. i get so irritated when people support each other's neurotic ideas, and then they expect me to join in. yes, i am neurotic, i have neurotic ideas, i am crazy.....but not THAT crazy. people don't WANT to feel. they want to play feelingish GAMES. C R A Z Y.
    i see couples cuddling each other, and there is ALWAYS something wrong...a rehearsed tone in their voices...something fake. it always has to be fake....they can't handle a REAL cuddle. they just can't do it.
    whenever one person senses the other persons's selfishness, the feeling quickly turns into a deep ugly hatred. but soon they will be in bed again.....all feelings are forgotten.....nothing but an insignificant sexual release between two people who can't even be friends. they giggle and smile at each other because all is forgotten.
    people talk to me about sex as if it is food. "i love it like this....i prefer it like that. how do you like IT. come and get some. richard, why aren't you fucking? are you shy? are you gay? just start with the ugly girls and work your way up"
    and the girls pretend to be better than that but they are not. the average girl is perhaps slightly more feeling than the average guy, but ultimately, everyone is a whore. girls use charm and sex appeal to get their PRIZE. people want some kind of prize....the perfect partner, the perfect job, the perfect achievement...whatever. the prize is the intellectual meaning of life. it is VERY intellectual. people think about the prize before they accept it. "is it good enough? could i do better?" i know when a girl is sizing me up. checking me out. chatting with her friends. "is he worth it?" and then as soon as i say something a little too real...like..."no i am not happy" CHING!! suddenly her intellect decides that i am worth NOTHING. immediately her face loses interest and the conversation becomes a strain. she wants to get rid of me. she's not listening. nothing i say can bring her back. she has made her decision and it is final. wow.
    i can't stand this world. i can't even hang out with my nieces and nephews because their fucked up parents think i am a bad influence. kids are the friendliest people in the world, and i am not allowed to be their friend. what a wonderful world.
    yes anonymous, i know what you mean. you need real friends. and i need to get to the primal center before i have a stroke or a heart attack.

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  15. Dr. Janov,
    You say: “Yet this person decides to have therapy, not because he suffers but because his wife told him to as she could not stand it anymore.”
    Would you say that nobody should recommend therapy? Not even PT?

    “I was unconscious of my life;”
    Did some of your memory came back, after your friends told you about what has happen?

    I think the human brain is most interesting and utterly frightening.
    Sieglinde

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  16. Anonymous, I experienced what you describe, pretty intensely, for the first couple years after I discovered Primal now 20 years ago. (Please note, I'm still yet to actually receive the therapy). I looked at *everything* (and I mean everything) thru Primal-tinted glasses.. It deeply affected all aspects of my life, yes my connections w/people, and my choices. Then somehow it led me to a place of being able to see the pain in everyone- taking various forms, we all have it, we are all the same, we are all human. This more compassionate view has led me to if anything connect more deeply w/people, even if that isn't necessarily played out w/them. Hope this helps.

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  17. Art,

    Happy new year to you to.

    I would like to know if you have any experience of the consequences of an ultrasound in a pregnancy. There is a shared view on the question of what the ultrasound cause or not? Looking forward to your answer.

    Frank

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  18. Anonymous,
    I wish that I could have put it so clearly. What you are experiencing is exaxtly what is happening to me. I find other people so disconnected. I find it difficult to talk to them without feeling "false". So, in order to have some company, I sometimes dance along with what their buzz is.

    As for my family, it seems as if I had moved millions of kilometres away from them. They are wary of me, because I am the one that is "strange", you know......I do not attend their happy-clappy churches, and I cannot stand being around them listening to one "naughty wink-wink" joke after another.

    Their is no-one else here where I live, with whom I can comfortably socialise, never mind buddying. So what I do I seek out women who seem to be more calm, relaxed and perhaps even somewhat demure. But the craziness soon shows, usually in the form of religious beliefs, or some other esoteric booga booga. It is a case of knowing so much about humans, and ourselves, (having felt so much of our pain), and being able to spot neurosis a long distance away.
    Express a feelling and out comes the ideations, or the attempt to rob you of your feeling, i.e. "Oh, you shouldn't feel that way about it.
    Have you tried bio-feedback?" or something akin to that. So we tolerate them. It actually pains me to see the total ignorance, the unawareness, the unconsciousness. I want to help and enlighten, but one is up against a solid wall of disconnectedness and left-brain effluence.

    On the other hand, I want to say how wonderful it is to be a feeling person and to be able to "lie down and feel it" as France Janov said.
    Connecting with deep-down first-line pain is the most satisfying experience (and healing) experience anyone can have.

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  19. Sieglinde: You know the answer. Do not believe that some wiseman has all the knowledge about your life. You have it. art

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  20. Steve: Yes my biographer will clarify all that. He and I meet this next week. It is very slow due to my throat. Anyone know who is doing stem cell therapy? At the start it was my kids who sat for me and they did just fine. Then I had therapy in my clinic by one of my therapists. I sat in the waiting room just like all other patients. art

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  21. Sieglinde: Yes of course you can recommend it. What I do is recommend they read the Primal Scream. After that, they can decide. No one should go because a wife or husband insists on it. art

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  22. Sieglinde: My memory did not come back because I think it never got registered in the first place. Art.

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  23. Paul,

    "interference from my right brain that I can't concentrate" Paul... do you know how right and big that question is? That is a main question for alot of us... if we only could "acknowledge" that. Leaking pain that affects us in everything we do... allways with no mercy... that is our life... can anyone imagine that? That is the the pain the child in us had and we has to fight against... with no "mercy" if we not go to the Primal Center.

    Frank
    Frank

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  24. A comment by planespotter that got erased by mistake:
    "Hi Anonymous

    I have not had Primal Therapy yet but hope to soon.

    I would say that my reading and recovery from a breakdown (I call it my breakthrough) has caused me to feel very much like you do. As I have recovered and got more in touch with my feelings and my true past I have gained far more empathy for other people. I seem to be surrounded by pain in my friends etc. I think it does cause one to feel more cut off from people. I find it hard to be able to say what I wish sometimes because I know it will alienate someone. I think that in some ways it is about learning to be with oneself more. I would say that I was and can still be a very suggestable person so I am easily influenced by others feelings because that is how I was brought up. I had to accept the role and personality I was given by Parents and thus even now if I am not careful I still act as this involuntary sponge and so have broken off contact with some other sick people simply because it did me no good to be around them.
    "

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  25. Hi Patrick

    I watched a recent film called "Unknown" starring Liam Neesan in which his character says "Insanity is the war between who we are told we should be and who we know ourselves to be". I love that quote. It sums up so much in so few words. Those girls (and billions of others) telling you should not feel like that are suffering from that very war without even knowing it? I was sitting having lunch the other day and overheard a young woman say "Oh he would make a wonderful Boyfriend once he has been formed". Who did she think she was to think like that. God help any poor bloke who meets her. What fills me with hope is that a main stream film like "Unknown" can offer a little ray of sunshine in one phrase.

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  26. Hi,

    It is the beginning of the end of your own craziness when you loose your desire and ability to go along with everyone elses' craziness.

    We just have to go through the loneliness, it's not possible to circumnavigate that emptiness (unless you can actually construct a new false self, some do). No matter how painful the trek is, we can take pride in being true to who we really are and not playing along as and with a hollow facade.

    Everybody fighting off the resonance. Pretending to be shiny rocks, in a brave new world.

    Paul G.

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  27. Frank: I know that amniocentesis is not good but I am not aware of what ultrasound does. I am sure that the readers do. art

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  28. Dr. Janov,

    is it really possible for the brain to shut down completely and not register danger?
    How can this happen?
    Maybe if the memory is triggered by confrontation it will awaken?

    I also did not remember that I tried committing suicide in 1962 at age 13, but the memory came back in 2004.
    In 2002 I visited my hometown for the second time and confronted myself again with all the familiar places, most of all the places off horror.
    I was standing on railing on the outer rim of the castle in my hometown, my eyes gazing with pleasure over the romantic town laying 800 Meter below. I felt a deep connection until I saw the rock 200 meters below, bulging out from the solid Granit where the castle stands. Fear crept up and the butterflies in my stomach made me leave the Castle area in panic, not knowing why.
    In 2004 I talked to a school friend and she told me that my best friend Heidi told her back then, that she was with me on the Falcon Rock when I wanted to jump (we called it the Falcon-rock because Falcons were nesting there in safety). I did not believe her at the time. The reason; I normally finish what I start. Finally two years later my memory came back, triggered by a picture from the Falcon-Rock from a different angle.
    I know now why I did not not jumped. Heidi asked me: “what happens if you do not die and you end up as a cripple - then they will torture you even more”, (meaning my parents).
    This memory was also confirmed by a woman who saw me at the time standing there and called the police. I however don’t remember the police part. At least not yet.

    Sieglinde

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  29. Sorry, ditto Art above re ultrasound

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  30. Art, thank you very much for your reply. Though I am sure it was never your intention you have left me with a nice feeling and a smile on my face. Why? Well I just cannot imagine anyone’s kids here in the UK ‘sitting’ for their parent in the way that you are describing, sadly it would never happen, yet what you have described sounds beautiful to me beyond words. Painful in the Primal way for sure, but it still sounds ever so human when you say your kids sat with you at the start. Thank you for sharing that with us.

    Regards
    Steve

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  31. Steve and Art,

    My 21yr old son and I occasionally break down together, mostly we prefer being on our own. . .

    I can't carry on being his coach. . .

    It's become a duty to my entire family and friends to get to the clinic as well as for myself. Even if most of them are under the influence of repression and self suppression.

    On the subject of "shallow interactions":

    Before I contacted my true feelings I could easily notice other peoples' self defeating behaviour and also peoples' tendencies to become identified with their own pain, acting the 'victim', 'crying about some thing'.

    I could easily and pompously judge others by saying they were exhibiting 'self fulfilling prophesy and acting the victim'.

    Now that I'm breaking down there are four particularly cerebral people I know (including my ex who has limited contact with our daughter) telling me I'm in a self fulfilling prophesy and acting the victim.

    The funny thing is, that hardly rankles at all, compared to when my true feelings were bottled up and I could pass that judgement onto others! Boy oh boy oh boy, wasn't I sneering and pissed off with those 'wimps'. . .

    I felt so remorseful about that when my true feelings surfaced and now people (blocked up in their own emotions) say the same thing to me. . . Sometimes I just smile. . .

    If necessary I'll swim the Atlantic.

    Paul G.

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  32. The Britihs historian Michael Howard was also like A. Janov thrown into the war. He fought in many battles in southern Italy as troop commander. He has used most of his adult life studying the phenomenon war.

    Howard emphasizes that war is the worst of evil a human can experience.
    How is a soldier´s encounter with the war? Howard say the war is unique.

    Think of a swimmer who practice a whole career and in the moment he shall try to win a medal in Olympic games he get a pool with water to swim in. So it is for a soldier who is thrown into a battle, from manage a lot of material, buildings and personal the worst evil of the war. All of human feelings are mobilized under such conditions.

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  33. (author of "Does anybody else contend with this?")

    Thank you so much for your responses. Your individual takes on this has helped me accept another painful reality I'd rather not see/experience: How lonely it can be coming to oneself in this world. I see now that I have been heretofore clinging to the pale comfort I have found in the company of my social world(s), behaving in ways I know that will keep me in their good graces, in order to stave off this horrible feeling of loneliness that has been pressing upon me with increasing magnitude. I love my friends despite the gaps between us and I will stay with them, but it is clear I have to learn to be true to myself first and foremost. What I have been doing to myself is not their fault.

    Thanks again, all. Art, this is your blog and it occurs to me that this may not be the right "cyber place" for us primal folk to talk to each other. Is there an online forum out there for us primal-ers? Or perhaps you are content to have us sort things out here from time to time?

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  34. Anonymous: Or you can organize something on your own. It is your world. Do what you want with it. art

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  35. > "Subconsciously we are drawn to loneliness because it's a safe place to hide."

    Or maybe love seems too scary, unreliable, and potentially painful.

    Do people procrastinate because they're lazy...or because the task seems too difficult? Maybe they fear success will be held against them. Or think something will come along and queer the deal (like a movie that starts happily but ends with everyone miserable or blown to shitereens).

    I don't think anyone "naturally" chooses to NOT meet needs. Someone or something has to teach him/her to be guarded, hesitant, etc.

    If people are tense, suggesting they relax usually makes them more tense. Ditto yelling "Just do it!" If they hesitate it's probably because they WANT to act but fear failing. Or think they can't "get 'er done." Or might succeed but then be unloved by envious others (witness how celebrity magazines love to see successful folks fail!).

    Who wants to feel unsupported, mocked, shunned, and so on?

    I used to "like" getting chilled outside in winter, just before going home for supper in grammar school. I knew our house would be emotionally cold. So I substituted the contrast between furnace heat and outdoor cold to feel "something."

    Masturbating later provided a similar sense of "aliveness" in The House of Emotional Death. If you're mocked for publicly needing, you'll comfort yourself in private.

    I also held back on intimate relationships with women because I feared they'd discover the "real" me and leave. I was not a good ice-breaker. Yet once in conversation, I was fine. The problem then became "closing the deal." How to go from the relative safety of left-brain "talk" to the scarier right-brain world of meeting needs?

    And what hetero male hasn't felt the sting of asking a female who's danced with others to dance and hear her say, "No!"? It feels like more than declining a dance. It's like she's rejecting you in toto.

    On the other hand, I sometimes felt I "had" to like whomever liked me; that it was "wrong" to want more. Like I'd hurt the feelings of strawberry ice cream (myself? my mother?) if I ordered what I really wanted: pistachio! Like my happiness hurt others.

    I thought denying myself meant I was "strong." In fact I was afraid to admit I wasn't loved by my family...and so felt unlovable altogether. Easier to forego love than ask for it and be denied. Again.

    I had great empathy for others' suffering, but couldn't imagine anyone caring about mine.

    I don't think I would have felt that way, or acted hesitant, if my family had been warmer and more supportive. My needs for love, consistency, encouragement, guidance, etc. were ignored/mocked/back-burnered. My role in our "family circus" was to contort myself to amuse others.

    Sex was also never mentioned, save as "disgusting" (in the traditional Catholic-aversion-to-premarital-sex way).

    Even now I TALK about getting massages while balking. It's like I'm afraid I'll start blubbering like a baby or cause the masseuse to run away in disgust.

    Odd, too, since my left brain "knows" I'm good looking. My right brain, though, says, "Really? Then why did your own family not hold you or show much attention?"

    So I'll keep y'all posted about any "primals" I experience during massages and/or salsa lessons.

    Seems silly, I know, but aren't we sometimes most afraid to try to meet simple, basic needs? There's nowhere to hide if we fail. If you're hungry and in a supermarket it's one thing. But if you're hungry and there's just one kebob left at the park vending cart-- and you don't get it-- well, you have no excuse or place to hide or food. You just have your pain.

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  36. About not being able to socialize like one used to....

    For about 5 years I listed things-to-do in an urban area on various websites. I became quite popular. I also got into many big ticket events for free. However, I could never monetize my efforts beyond certain pittances...so I sensed sooner or later the worm would turn.

    Meanwhile, I liked the attention, notoriety, etc. I suppose it gave me a sense of what families could be like.

    Then I started feeling the ROI wasn't worth it. Beyond the lack of money, I began to see too many of the same people at events...and they me. After saying "Hello!" I had nothing to say to most attendees. In truth, we had little in common save complimentary drinks and appetizers.

    Yet I don't think becoming a hermit is the answer. Isolation solves nothing. It's one thing to stay home when you want to, quite another when you feel there's nowhere else to go.

    I think it's grand and good to meet kindred souls. Especially for those who were denied support from families and/or who got the wrong kind of attention.

    The Internet provides tons of social-networking tools (Facebook, Meetup, Eventbrite, etc.). You can search for extant groups or form your own. You can even arrange conference calls on Skype meetings.

    So...has anyone tried to create a Meetup for "Janov Admirers" in their town-city-region? Or a book club to discuss Art's opuses? Libraries and other non-profits sometimes provide meeting places and promotions for folks interested in discussions. You could see who might host a club called "Arthur's Anonymous"...A support group for people withdrawing from neurosis. :>)

    Once you meet similar-minded folks the rest of life can happen, too: dinners, dancing, movies, love, and so on.

    I personally find this blog...GREAT! I'm proud to be able to hear from "Papa Primal" himself 42 years after reading THE PRIMAL SCREAM. I was so moved by it that I convinced a half-dozen friends from the Midwest to move to New England and experience it with me.

    Unfortunately it was a mock Institute that wreaked havoc on most attendees. Still, I always sensed there was much truth, and great integrity, in Art himself (unlike, say, Carlos Casteneda and other hucksters). Would that I wasn't so burned. It would have been healing to try the real deal back then, when I had more money.

    Oh well.

    I find the words of others here comforting. Inspiring even. I use them as "Dumbo feathers," borrowing them when my own courage falters.

    Now...for a bit of levity, check these:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primal_Scream_(Harvard)

    http://tinyurl.com/7y3u3eu

    http://www.meetup.com/Edinburgh-Live-Music-Lets-Go/events/31514402/

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  37. Hello Dr. Janov!
    I have been reading through your blog it has been a few days. I am SO happy I did. I love your approach, perspective, and explanation to how things happen. I admire your writtings & work so much. You deserve more than a nobel prize for your discovering.

    I am also sorry for what you have been through, it is tough, but happy you made it!

    I'd like to share that I currently have major depression, it has been 7 months.
    I'll be honest with you, I wish I could stop CBT therapy & reach out for Primeal but I live in the middle east. I know, however, that I will travel some day & when I will I will make sure to get to your center and take therapy. I will also be buying your book (primal scream) soon.

    I'd like to ask you a question, if you don't mind; Do you think art therapy tackles the right brain well?
    I am into drawing & painting, when depressed, I tend to draw my situation. A few days ago, I drew a mandala of my "self" and in it, I discovered a few things including "No love - No care" which appeared suddenly ( along with other things). It's like my subconscious is trying to reach out. IT is is true, I admit. I was not well loved at home (abused physically & emotionally for 4 years by mom & an absent Dad almost all years)

    Do you think (for now) it can help me?

    Also, through trying to find meaning of my past drawings, I discovered other issues. Things I didn't know about myself unconsciously.

    What is your opinion? Can this help me?

    I am looking forward for you answer.

    Keep up, your not just great- but, amazing work! You deserve much more!

    Sincerely,

    Harmony

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Review of "Beyond Belief"

This thought-provoking and important book shows how people are drawn toward dangerous beliefs.
“Belief can manifest itself in world-changing ways—and did, in some of history’s ugliest moments, from the rise of Adolf Hitler to the Jonestown mass suicide in 1979. Arthur Janov, a renowned psychologist who penned The Primal Scream, fearlessly tackles the subject of why and how strong believers willingly embrace even the most deranged leaders.
Beyond Belief begins with a lucid explanation of belief systems that, writes Janov, “are maps, something to help us navigate through life more effectively.” While belief systems are not presented as inherently bad, the author concentrates not just on why people adopt belief systems, but why “alienated individuals” in particular seek out “belief systems on the fringes.” The result is a book that is both illuminating and sobering. It explores, for example, how a strongly-held belief can lead radical Islamist jihadists to murder others in suicide acts. Janov writes, “I believe if people had more love in this life, they would not be so anxious to end it in favor of some imaginary existence.”
One of the most compelling aspects of Beyond Belief is the author’s liberal use of case studies, most of which are related in the first person by individuals whose lives were dramatically affected by their involvement in cults. These stories offer an exceptional perspective on the manner in which belief systems can take hold and shape one’s experiences. Joan’s tale, for instance, both engaging and disturbing, describes what it was like to join the Hare Krishnas. Even though she left the sect, observing that participants “are stunted in spiritual awareness,” Joan considers returning someday because “there’s a certain protection there.”
Janov’s great insight into cultish leaders is particularly interesting; he believes such people have had childhoods in which they were “rejected and unloved,” because “only unloved people want to become the wise man or woman (although it is usually male) imparting words of wisdom to others.” This is just one reason why Beyond Belief is such a thought-provoking, important book.”
Barry Silverstein, Freelance Writer

Quotes for "Life Before Birth"

“Life Before Birth is a thrilling journey of discovery, a real joy to read. Janov writes like no one else on the human mind—engaging, brilliant, passionate, and honest.
He is the best writer today on what makes us human—he shows us how the mind works, how it goes wrong, and how to put it right . . . He presents a brand-new approach to dealing with depression, emotional pain, anxiety, and addiction.”
Paul Thompson, PhD, Professor of Neurology, UCLA School of Medicine

Art Janov, one of the pioneers of fetal and early infant experiences and future mental health issues, offers a robust vision of how the earliest traumas of life can percolate through the brains, minds and lives of individuals. He focuses on both the shifting tides of brain emotional systems and the life-long consequences that can result, as well as the novel interventions, and clinical understanding, that need to be implemented in order to bring about the brain-mind changes that can restore affective equanimity. The transitions from feelings of persistent affective turmoil to psychological wholeness, requires both an understanding of the brain changes and a therapist that can work with the affective mind at primary-process levels. Life Before Birth, is a manifesto that provides a robust argument for increasing attention to the neuro-mental lives of fetuses and infants, and the widespread ramifications on mental health if we do not. Without an accurate developmental history of troubled minds, coordinated with a recognition of the primal emotional powers of the lowest ancestral regions of the human brain, therapists will be lost in their attempt to restore psychological balance.
Jaak Panksepp, Ph.D.
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.
Grounded in these two principles, Dr. Janov continues to explore the lifelong impact of prenatal, birth, and early experiences on our brains and minds. Simultaneously “old school” and revolutionary, he synthesizes traditional psychodynamic theories with cutting-edge science while consistently highlighting the limitations of a strict, “top-down” talking cure. Whether or not you agree with his philosophical assumptions, therapeutic practices, or theoretical conclusions, I promise you an interesting and thought-provoking journey.
Lou Cozolino, PsyD, Professor of Psychology, Pepperdine University


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.
Gabor Maté MD, author of In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction

An expansive analysis! This book attempts to explain the impact of critical developmental windows in the past, implores us to improve the lives of pregnant women in the present, and has implications for understanding our children, ourselves, and our collective future. I’m not sure whether primal therapy works or not, but it certainly deserves systematic testing in well-designed, assessor-blinded, randomized controlled clinical trials.
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.
Paula Thomson, PsyD, Associate Professor, California State University, Northridge & Professor Emeritus, York University

"I am enthralled.
Dr. Janov has crafted a compelling and prophetic opus that could rightly dictate
PhD thesis topics for decades to come. Devoid of any "New Age" pseudoscience,
this work never strays from scientific orthodoxy and yet is perfectly accessible and
downright fascinating to any lay person interested in the mysteries of the human psyche."
Dr. Bernard Park, MD, MPH

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.
One of the book’s most intriguing theories is that fetal imprinting, an evolutionary strategy to prepare children to cope with life, establishes a permanent set-point in a child's physiology. Baby's born to mothers highly anxious during pregnancy, whether from war, natural disasters, failed marriages, or other stressful life conditions, may thus be prone to mental illness and brain dysfunction later in life. Early traumatic events such as low oxygen at birth, painkillers and antidepressants administered to the mother during pregnancy, poor maternal nutrition, and a lack of parental affection in the first years of life may compound the effect.
In making the case for a brand-new, unified field theory of psychotherapy, Dr. Janov weaves together the evolutionary theories of Jean Baptiste Larmarck, the fetal development studies of Vivette Glover and K.J.S. Anand, and fascinating new research by the psychiatrist Elissa Epel suggesting that telomeres—a region of repetitive DNA critical in predicting life expectancy—may be significantly altered during pregnancy.
After explaining how hormonal and neurologic processes in the womb provide a blueprint for later mental illness and disease, Dr. Janov charts a revolutionary new course for psychotherapy. He provides a sharp critique of cognitive behavioral therapy, psychoanalysis, and other popular “talk therapy” models for treating addiction and mental illness, which he argues do not reach the limbic system and brainstem, where the effects of early trauma are registered in the nervous system.
“Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script that Rules Our Lives” is scheduled to be published by NTI Upstream in October 2011, and has tremendous implications for the future of modern psychology, pediatrics, pregnancy, and women’s health.
Editor