I published this article in July of 2015, but since my wife France is launching the Legacy program, I would like to remind us all about her incredible contribution to Primal Therapy.
There is someone who is doing heroic work in the shadows who does not get paid but who works many hours a day. She supervises all clinical work, and teaches the basics of the therapy, runs the administrative side of the Center and deals with all outside inquiries. In short, the pivot around which the clinic revolves. Her crowning achievement is the Primal Legacy Program. This is the result of 6 years of constant effort to construct a program for professionals and laymen so that the therapy can be understood by all clinically and scientifically. It is the first attempt by any therapy to publish its hypothesis and practice as a result of Dr. France Janov's teaching and supervision. (Available now).
She is the engine, the motor for the advancement in the practice of Primal Therapy. She is there to help therapists work with patients. Who could do any more? She is our resident savant……Dr. France Janov.
It is hard to realize, even for me, how much work goes into directing even a small clinic, a clinic that has patients from 38 countries, and requires communications among people from many countries of the world. And oh yes, she is my wife of 42 years.
What does it mean to run a psychiatric clinic? It means knowing the latest science so as to help therapists know how our therapy fits in with science. It means knowing the various afflictions people suffer and why. It involves knowing about people from different countries and how they differ as a population; for ex., what is the most repressed country and what is the least? It is a wide-ranging job that requires clinical skills, financial ability, relevant science and how to help our therapists relate to foreign patients some who only have minimal skills in English. Needless to say, it is a job well done, too often done in the shadows by someone who manages to keep it all going well. Our thanks to France.
Hi Art & all,
ReplyDeleteI noticed in the video that the Vietnam vet said understanding Primal Theory was key to healing in the process. This theme has cropped up many times on the blog. But why not? I mean, he's right, because the whole point 'in' evolution is to evolve a process whereby the organism can maintain a defense and a balance despite / inspite of the 'environmental impacts'. This requires a passage in time, a 'reprieve'. That is how evolution works. But after you've mastered that repreive. . .
Yet I sense there are two aspects, there is the original 1st line 'imprint' and then there is the 2nd line interpretation of it. In the 'descent' the order is essential but the content doesn't matter, the dreams and images are not 'it'. It's the feelings and sensations, the 'resonance down' that's significant. The feelings are the flavour (the smell, the scent) of the connection, of the 'access'.
Thus why words never can be the medium for the access.
Paul G.
Merci beaucoup France and Art! Your work, and writings help.
ReplyDeleteI just wanna be myself. Art you look so relaxed, without tense on this trailer.
ReplyDeleteIt is certainly important to be reminded of France Janov's work, as well as the work of others who have put these theories into practice over the years.Just last night, I was reading passages from two of Janov's books, and I was moved as usual by the unheeded cries and rages of infants apparently underlying so many traumas, and wondering why this all has to be so for so many people and on such a widespread scale, now and in the past.I was wondering about me and what made me what I am, now again longing painfully for a new girlfriend with no one in sight, after once again being subtily rejected. What's wrong with me, will I end up old and alone as so many do? It should not have to be this way for anybody.
ReplyDeleteI was also reminded of the first time I came in contact with a person into Primal, about 40 years ago.I used to hang around this New Age centre that offered courses in all sorts of alternative methods of healing. One day, this guy who I had seen around there a while, came up to me and confided that he secretly wore women's clothes sometimes (not as a transvestite).I did not laugh at him or flee in any way, but just listened. To this day, I am moved that he felt he could confide such a secret to me. Unfortunately there was nothing I could do for him. At one point, there was a special day of activities where representatives of various therapeutic systems could present their stuff to an audience, and he demonstrated what a Primal was apparently. He was thrashing and writhing away, and I did not know what to make of it. I don't know if it was a Primal, or an abreaction, or maybe just some faking.I knew little about Primal at that point.I doubt he had been to Los Angeles at the Primal centre of the time, so all this "Primalling" probably came from some mock primalist(s) in the Ontario area at the time. And , oh yeah, then came the weirdo rebirthers in Montreal afterwards (early 80s), whom I felt skeptical about even before I read Janov's critiques of them. That story is for another time.
Marco
Those Canadians ruined the lives of so many who are all stuck in abreaction. It would take months to reverse it all. art
Delete...and love seeing how you treat people, your so patient and kind on the trailer, and how your students love and care for you...
ReplyDeleteI had a great teacher... my father... I do everything the opposite of what he did and vowed never to be like him. art
DeleteThere are levels of teachers, and I'm in no doubt that You and France are among the most advanced of teachers! ....time for me to make my vows to never be like my bad teachers!
ReplyDelete