Because
we are undoing and redoing your life? Because we are opening up the gates
of repression and allowing access to deeply embedded pain? Because we
need to open the gates slowly so that the patient is never overwhelmed by what
is buried down below. It takes skills and patience. It is so easy to open the patient up and get dramatic results;
results that resemble a primal but are largely a release of the pressure of the
feeling without its content. It feels good and can fool the patient
and the doctor. I teach all of the time how to avoid all this and keep
the patient sane.
When we reach down into the unconscious that predates words and feelings and parallels the archaic brain, we are touching on a primitive brain that deals in impulses and reptilian movements. It emanates from millions up millions of years ago with a brain that can be rageful, or terror ridden, and ultimately can register deep hopelessness labeled as suicidal depression. It is largely the brainstem and the lower reaches of the nervous system. It is an area that takes great care and does not support a booga booga approach, where anything goes.
We adhere to science and facts and try not to concoct theories that do not correspond to reality. Remember we are attempting to put together a disconnected brain system where nervous impulses were severed from their counterpart so that feelings had little or no access to corresponding ideas and beliefs. Feelings stopped being a guide for behavior and left the person bereft of guidelines.
Hi Art,
ReplyDeleteIf I could have penned an easy answer to your question I would not have had a true reply.
There are many people who seek a more fulfilling life and know very well that such a thing doesn't happen 'out there' or over night. The idea that there are no easy answers or quick solutions is not new.
Sincere people know this.
But what you bring to this very old arena (even for 'sincere people') is a new lens and a new language which for most is too hard to bear. Not because they expect a pain free path, but because what you suggest, tips the self image of most people beyond their capacity for humility. "How can I sustain my life, any lifestyle whilst aiming for an ongoing series of depth dives to the bottom of a pit of despair"-?
The idea that deliberately aiming at rooting out old pains by re-living them, - and it cannot be done in 'condensed form', (ie: "it's a life long work") suggests to most a life of misery, a life spent unpicking a badly knitted jumper, yet the relief is beyond words once the connections are made; it's a different world after that.
Hopefully the rewards are also in a life longer than without those connections. That would be an incentive for more if only the 'proof' could offer the new diver the faith and hope s he needs to start that journey down.
Then there are those who have little choice because they already fell into that pit of despair, quite likely they cannot yet rely on the only clinic on the planet that can actually facilitate this life long work.
So, we are glad for the Legacy as that offer some hope eh?
Paul G.
Hi Paul, I agree that those who are in the pit of despair and even those teetering on its edge will most likely be the ones who seek out and understand the premises of primal therapy. You almost have to be suffering to recognize the message. Those with reasonable functioning will defend against the message of primal, still having means to cope with acceptable act-outs of their pain. I think it's almost useless to convince someone of the merits of therapy unless they are suffering or their life isn't working at all for them.
ReplyDeleteHere's to our fellow sufferers!