Happy Birthday Letter 1

We are beginning a “Happy Birthday” series of letter sent to Art by patients, former patients, friends and readers from all over the world that show how Primal Therapy have impacted their lives.

When cancer or heart patients thank their doctors for saving their lives, we all know that they mean. The patient survived and the doctor gets the credit, as well as honors and recognition from his profession. Often, we have heard Primal patients say the same thing: “Thanks, Dr. Janov, for saving my life.” But what we mean is not as obvious to everyone. After all, we weren’t dying of cancer or heart disease, at least not imminently. So why do we all feel rescued?

I cannot bear to think what would have become of me if I had not read “The Primal Scream” back in 1973. I was 24 years old and my life had come completely off the rails. As I once told you personally, I had a sudden, inexplicable breakdown five years earlier when I was a sophomore in college. Sitting at home reading a book without a care in the world, then suddenly engulfed in panic and terror that seemed to well up from deep inside, but out of nowhere. I felt like I was in a strange science fiction movie in which a comfortable existence turns into a waking nightmare and the victim is forced to spend all his energy to figure out why his life has gone haywire.

Nobody could understand what I was going through. The craziness was so excruciatingly isolating. It felt like an electrical storm of madness in my head that only I could see. How can you explain the fear of losing your mind when everything around you seems sunny and normal?

When I read your transformative book, I felt like I had finally found a person who understood my suffering and its causes. Like so many other readers, my reaction was immediate and instinctual. You offered a way out. And I was desperate to take it.

The first step in saving a life is understanding what threatens it. The next step is knowing what must be done to remove the threat and restore health. By this measure, Art, you are a true healer.

So when we say you saved our lives, we really mean that you restored a life worth living. You unlocked the mystery of neurosis by understanding that emotional pain is at the root, that repression is required to keep the pain at bay and that, in that devil’s bargain, we wind up living in a suspended state of perpetual suffering, or numbness.

So what kind of life is that?

My nerves were so frayed from the constant tension that soon after getting my first big job at the San Francisco Chronicle I trembled and shook for the entire night, curled up in a ball until dawn. What kind of a life can there be without the ability to sustain a livelihood?

When my dad pumped me full of Prolixin and Haldol to calm my nerves, I became a zombie. I was no longer trembling but I was trapped in a cold, eerie stillness that truly turned me into the walking dead.  What kind of a life can there be when you are at war with your own body?

My relationships were such a mess because as soon as I would find somebody I really valued, I became so insanely jealous that I made her life miserable and ultimately would drive her away. What kind of a life can there be without love?

We also often say that Primal Therapy gave us our lives back. But what does that mean, exactly? Sure, with less anxiety, anger, fear and insecurity, we are liberated to pursue the things that can really make us happy in life. A good job, a solid relationship, the ability to feel joy. But for me, getting my life back also meant understanding what really happened to me. For example, knowing that my jealousy began before I was two years old, when I felt rage for having been rejected by my mother and replaced by the next baby in a line of eight. How could I have grown up without realizing I was so hurt and angry at the time, and ever since. All I saw was the devastating aftermath in my wrecked relationships. Primal Therapy helped me connect the crippling effect with the unconscious cause.

That’s a huge gift, knowing the real self. That is reality restored. And your mind won’t let you rest until you put it all together, the behavior with the reason why.

In an unexpected way, you also gave me the chance to have a genuine moment of affection and reconciliation between me and my father. You know what kind of father he was. Emotionally distant, angry, critical, verbally abusive and a mean disciplinarian. Mostly, I was afraid of him. Still, he read your book and it touched something inside that hard heart of his. So much so that he decided to take out a loan to pay for my therapy, a shocking move from an inveterate penny-pincher. As a doctor, he saw my suffering too and must have realized there was no other good option.

Then one day during a visit home in the year after starting therapy, the buried emotions of our lives bubbled over. At the kitchen table, he started telling me of the nightmare he was living at home with my mother, who was having a full-blown psychotic breakdown. I was newly open to my feelings and couldn’t take it. I got up and rushed to the back bedroom where I used to sleep as a child. I collapsed on the bed and stated crying.

My father came back shortly to see what was wrong. When I saw him silhouetted in the doorway, that familiar figure I used to fear, I quickly sat up and dried my eyes. Crying was not allowed in front of him, even after he’d beat us with a belt. So I tried to recover and asked him to wait for me in the kitchen. When I went out to rejoin him, I explained I just couldn’t stand to hear anymore about the family problems. Then, he did something that totally caught me off guard. He asked for forgiveness. “If I hurt you in some way, son, I’m sorry.”

For what seems like the first time in my life, we hugged like father and son, with feeling.

So not only did I discover that I was in pain, my father did too. For all of my childhood, he had overlooked it. He had hurt me overtly, deliberately, brutally sometimes, but somehow he didn’t see the damage he was doing until it was too late. Then he tried to make up for it by getting me into the only therapy that could have saved me. So I forgave him.

Now, I pass on the benefits of my insights to the next generation. I have raised two sons based on what I learned from Primal Therapy. Respect their feelings. Listen carefully. Respond to their needs and be there for them.

Andres and I are so attuned to each other because I have always allowed him to express his feelings openly. If he needs to cry, I lie down with him and just hold him or sit with him. Sometimes just the look on his face reveals his feeling – hurt, disappointment, sadness or whatever. When I spot it, I stop what I’m doing. Maybe I was scolding him too harshly and didn’t realize. So I stop talking and turn to him. All I have to say is “You look sad” or “I see you’re angry.” Once I verbalize his feeling, or rather acknowledge it, he looks at me with his whole face brimming with emotion, and he nods yes. As soon as he knows that I know, the flood gates open. His lip starts trembling, his eyes well with tears. And he cries.

So there it is, the secret to a happy life. Try not to hurt your kids. But if they get hurt, let them have their feelings. Let them see you understand, that you can see inside their little hearts. That you care.

In this way, Art, the life you saved is paying it forward. And that will be your legacy. One by one, we can save the world, one child at a time. That is worth a Nobel Prize many times over. You may not see that in your lifetime, but we can honor you individually, by making sure that we are living life as fully as it was meant to be, and helping our children do the same.

Thanks for saving mine.

A.G., USA