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
Dear France,
ReplyDeletethank you.
very best regards
Paul G.
Thank you, France, for all the posts. I for one find in them much wisdom and truth about pain and the acknowledgement we have to go through pain to release it. I hope primal therapy goes on for decades so people will have a place to learn to heal.
ReplyDeleteTake good care.
Thank you for this update, France, and of course thank you for all your work and the Legacy program (which I'm saving up for :-)).
ReplyDeleteI have always liked the subtitle of the blog: The Simple Truth is Revolutionary. I hope that one day the simple truth does gain popular acceptance, and the revolution, momentum. For the moment it seems, one is never thanked for starting a revolution!
Erron
Dear France
ReplyDeleteMy heart is with you.
France - I noted earlier that I have Art's picture on my wall, where I see it daily. Yours is there too, right next to Art's. You remain in my thoughts. Dan Krettek
ReplyDeleteFrance, thank you.
ReplyDeleteArt's blog, enjoyed for many years is and will be missed.
Best wishes to you,
Karen
Dear France,
ReplyDeletehow are you?
Thank you for keeping the blog open.
Sieglinde
Hallo, France
ReplyDeleteThank you for your message! I feel his loss so often and so deeply! Only looking at his photograph makes me realise even more how different he was from the monotonous humdrum shrinks. I would say he wasn't one of the most important' but THE most important in the field of psychotherapy. Much more so than Freud, Jung and the others. What a wonderful friend he must have been. There will never be another like him. I wish I could come for the therapy but my money isn't enough at present. I hope you are keeping well despite your great loss. My best to you from Sandie B.
Hello France.
ReplyDeleteI'm incredibly happy and thankful for you sharing your knowledge.
I can not say by words how you've helped me to understand my feelings and what I need to do. It's so easy to understand you as you explain how a process goes on
on Youtube, I've seen everything you've posted about primaltherapy.
A couple of years ago, I was firmly stuck in my hopelessness and could not do anything to help myself, then I saw you describe the process and I could continue to help myself, great to have that help.
I am very grateful for your work and very grateful that I have learned from it. I'm doing great today, I know what I have to work with and I understand myself in a fantastic way. Today I have the opportunity to get in touch with my innermost and at last I can feel my need of love. It's great to be in it, it's easy now because I recognize it and I dare to allow myself to feel and dare to come along and dare to stay there for as long as necessary.
What I've discovered about myself that is I have to dare to feel and acknowledge and let it get up so I can be with it. I feel very happy because I did not know at what level everything was. I am relieving from a very deep pain and I'm glad I have understood what I need to do.
I can not by words thank you and your amazing Arthur enough for your wonderful work.
Thanks!
Aida Castañeda
To France, and others, I wish there were no such thing as death and no one would have to feel the cold hard reality that their loved one will never come back. Life is so beautiful and brutal. I hope anyone who has lost a loved one is still getting lots and lots of hugs from someone who feels your tears, and loves you deeply forever. I know the pain is huge and it must be felt, and the loss will be felt forever but I am sure that a million hugs will help a little.
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing, France. You are amazing too.
Richard