Scientific Confirmation for Primal Therapy

It isn’t only what happens in a laboratory with men in white coats that counts as science; I think clinical science also counts in the mix.  And it is not only the need to extrapolate from studying little animals with white tails.  It means studying real people with real maladies.  Which I believe we have done over fifty years, including also research results from outside groups … those mysterious souls in white coats.

Let me give one example.  Over the years we have seen dozens of patients suffering migraine headaches.  Those were the ones with severe anesthesia at birth.  Their Primals (reliving of feelings) were of choking and suffocation, gasping for air.  It was the commonality of most of them, but not all.  But as they relived lack of oxygen at birth, the suffocation went away as did the migraine.  It sounds like we figured it all out right away.  No.  It took months and years of this observation to learn that the whole vascular system was shutting down to defend against dying from lack of oxygen.  It was an extreme conservation move to survive.

Sometimes if the Primal did not finish there would be a return of the migraine, in short, there was still the memory of suffocation at work.  We were learning that the origins of many migraines was this asphyxiation during the birth process.  One of the early treatments for migraines was oxygen.  Now it is pills for shutting down pain, but coffee as a vasoconstrictor can help because it helps shut down the blood flow.

What then happened later on was that almost any stress could trigger the migraine as it also reawakened the original reaction which became the modus operandi for the sufferer.

The first coalescence of lab research and our clinical efforts was found at King’s College, London; Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience.  They wondered why pain continued even after the physical insult had gone.  They wanted to know why pain became chronic.  One thing they knew was that in pain there were more pain nerves active.  But why did they continue to cause pain?  Why did these proteins maintain their altered function?  They believed it was prolonged by epigenetics.  After an initial injury there is an “epigenetic footprint”.  The molecular imprint reawakens those proteins again; hence pain.  It tells us about the mechanisms but less often about the “why” of all this.  Why is there a migraine, in the first place? What caused it?

In Primal terms, the imprinted memory is still there and endures, and adverse events can set off the reactions again.  The nerves involved are still there waiting to be activated again.  But they carry the imprinted memory and are vulnerable. The triggers can be any threat or danger, even a criticism, taken as a threat to being loved; worse, to be excluded.

Another point of convergence between lab science and clinical science: A November 2015 study in Nature, Neuroscience (see http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v19/n1/abs/nn.4181.html), found that prenatal trauma was important in leaving traces on the gene of past trauma. This happens to coincide with our work where we actually see patients relive these traumas—a process called methylation.

The lab scientists found that these early traumas were heavily implicated in the later development of schizophrenia.  They studied methylation traces in over 500 cases and found that methylation changes “were most pronounced between pre and postnatal periods”.  We are finding this often during gestation that leads to many different kinds of mental afflictions.  Terror states becoming anxiety reactions in the parlance, the key cause of attention deficit reactions later on. Several studies have shown DNA methylation earlier than anyone expected: in the prenatal life.  And this then, in turn, changes gene expression, so what looks like pure genetics is really epigenetics which can be changed because it is not set in stone.  And a great deal of methylation changes occur very early to start the neurotic process even before we are born.  So in any therapy that deals with later life exclusively may be missing the proper therapeutic target.

It is not ideas that produce neurosis; it is the feeling traumas that predate them. They produce twisted ideas and perceptions and also physical abnormalities.

Here is more of what the researchers point out: ”Whatever risk factors are occurring in the fetal environment in utero, they appear to leave a lasting  mark on the sites that are different later in life in brains of patients (with schizophrenia).”
So there is an imprint that causes damage and endures and affects our mental apparatus.
Wait, isn’t that Primal Theory?  Oh my, we converge.
We must address the right brain, which literally is the right brain which imprints earlier than the left, if we are to help patients.  And isn’t that our goal?

Twice More on Addiction

So the New York Times is again running pieces about addiction with the same old tired results;  conclusion  “We do need to rein this in“. Thus spoke not Zarathustra but  Dr. Lynn Mcpherson of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. (see http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/07/health/opioid-limits-older-patients-pain.html). She would be right if we are addicted to drugs.  But what if we are addicted to needs which requires drugs to calm  them.  Would we say that about any other procedure? With no idea what her need is?  Need changes the problem immediately and alters our therapeutic approach.  No one takes pain killers over and over if there is no need for calming and soothing.  Let’s see: pain equals need for pain killers. But what if we see no pain?  Then of course we think pain killers are the problem.  And why don’t they see pain?  Because all they know is that in order to help rein in drugs they recommend going to a safer way; cognitive therapy (yes, it is recommended); it is all in our head, they believe, and therefore a therapy where we can turn our mind away from that need should do the job nicely.  The implication is that it is a bad habit, an attitude that needs changing. There is no understanding of deep pain or that it is imprinted in the brain and body.  We just need to “get over it.”  Said by those whose defenses work marvelously.  And if we become addicted we need better defenses; against what?  It is not said or acknowledged.  But pain from lack of early love seems to be off limits.

What does lack of love mean? Above all, early hugging, kissing, cuddling, protecting, teaching and other signs of carrying about the baby.  It is hard to visualize the amount of pain in the lack of their fulfillment but it is enormous; we have only to observe the reliving in our therapy of needs gone unfulfilled to understand it.  This is true of childhood life, of being ignored, never talked to, explained feelings and emotions, to be perceptive for the child’s moods and needs.  To be empathic and not denigrative when the child cries; to be encouraging without driving the child to fulfill parents’ needs.  To be understanding.

On a deep, earlier level, to make sure the child is not bustled about, fed correctly,  no drugs for the mother, or alcohol and tranquilizers.  This is essential as those drugs enter the fetus and create havoc; the need to escape from an input that is terrible and consistent—a chronic smoking mother.  When the child is not loved he is in pain and that pain is constant and unrelenting.  And, hidden.  The earlier the trauma the more deeply hidden it is.  When child is made anxious by an anxious carrying mother and then gives birth with heavy anesthetics, inescapable by the baby, he may be born terrified—no escape, cannot get out. Then at age two, left alone in the dark with no one there to hold and soothe him, his terror grows unceasingly; and sometimes, crib death is the result.  The result of the latent imprint fear and terror.  Sometimes the gating system kicks in and the deadening of feelings works.  Other times the pain is overwhelming.  The gates become leaky and the child is hyperactive and later becomes ADD. He cannot focus or concentrate and cannot sit still.  Mind you, we still cannot see the terror inside the baby; we can only infer it and still might never know where it comes from.  At age 20 she becomes addicted.  To drugs?  Yes but because her needs drive it. That is why I say that the addict is addicted to needs first. They drive it all.

Because, I submit, deeply sequestered anguish is off limits for those who treat.  It is not within the limit of their conscious/awareness; it lies off their mental boundary.  Feelings are not considered because addiction is “bad,” they are misbehaving.  And to make it true, the addict is often forced to go to street dealers and mingle with criminals.  Or to shooting-up galleries where other addicts hang out.  Some do steal to support their habit because they have been reined in from getting drugs legally.  Yet their bodies seem to know what they need.  Yes they do overdose because they are not medically supervised and are left to their own devices, and above all, they use street drugs with no idea what is in them.

The pain we are dealing with is so remote and so deep that it is far beyond the usual psychologic boundary.  For our adult patients, they are no longer infants in desperate need which eases a bit of the catastrophy of lack of love. To be held and cuddled right after birth is absolutely essential, not just something correct we must do.  And if it has gone missing, then a reliving is in order. Why? because the need remains and is unresolved until lived fully.  It needs crying out for fulfillment even though there is no fulfillment possible.

I have treated patients all of the time who tell me, “What’s the use they cannot love.”  And I say, “Your needs and feelings are what is at stake here.  So try… beg them to cherish you, to hold you and want you, even if they have never done it.”  That is what is liberating--feeling.  The unfulfilled need is blocked and held in storage deep within the brain.  That is why we don’t see it and deny it. And then we are off on a cognitive voyage trying to find what’s wrong; and we never ever do.  So if we don’t see it, it does not exist and we go on finding this solution or that, never dealing with the primordial cause.

To see outside we must first be open to the inside of us.  That I think is an obdurate law. So long as our iron-clad defenses work we will not be open to inside feelings and needs.  That is the function of defenses; to close us off from inside.  And we will then be struck with a heart attack or other kinds of afflictions with no forewarning.  Now look at our parents who were so closed off; did they have all kinds of medical problems?  Those early imprints were still at work manufacturing symptoms to be dealt with which were reminders of unfelt feelings and needs.  The imprint won’t let us go. Those needs and their pain from lack of fulfillment are embedded into the brain and biologic system and never disappear on their own.  They own us.

The rulers of current day therapy and research reminds me of the painting of the kindly old lady staring at a rose when a gorgeous  nude girl hovers in the background.  For the professionals they continue to look outside for clues; and believe that taking drugs is a sign of weakness, giving in to impulses. Rarely do we see any attempt to measure the latent pain levels in the system to see whether heavy pain killers are necessary.  In no other field of medicine do we give medicines without  a full work-up of the level of deficit or oversupply.  Why in the case of painkillers do we pontificate, leaving science behind, about their evil.  It sounds like a religious cult in a tent survival meeting defining the evil that lurks.  Where? Why inside of, course.  And it remains an unknown, a danger.  Recommendation? Reining in the drugs.

Interesting that when describing a so-called enemy, they are usually from outside wanting to harm us.

There are ways to measure imprinted pain.  One way is through stress hormones.  More important is the new field of methylation. We can measure pain by the process of observing methylated traces on the gene; and we can also measure its lowered levels with our therapy. (Research in the future).

What needs reining-in is a therapy that urges reining in. The incredible level of pain is not seen because of the type of their therapy.  I mean another type in their armentarium is Behavior Therapy; the unreflective extrapolation of one’s childhood family life;  all deviant behavior is not driven by anything but bad intentions.  We see this deviant behavior and we dance around it with all sorts of theories as to why; except one: pain.

So what is left?  Unfulfilled need.  How do we rein that need?  In the simplest way possible; we feel it.  Due to its load of pain it could not be felt at the time.  It is an old, primitive need that must be approached carefully, and never with drugs or other aides  such as LSD which blow open the repressive gates.    A need so archaic that it can hardly be described or conceptualized.  We rein-in needs that have resided in the antipodes of the brain; wordless and tearless.  A silent killer that waits its turn a lifetime for its need to be felt and fully experienced.  experience.  Imprinted pain leaves its traces on the gene.  And those traces are methyl, the processs of marking the spot Is called Methylation.  And we believe we do indeed rein in that need through demethylizing the basic cells.  And when we do, we diminish or stop the addiction in its tracks.  We address and reduce the unfulfilled need and with it the pain engendered.   All this because we can go back, find the spot and its circumstances and live the pain for the first time.  We have observed it and measured it through many different avenues:  cortisol, natural killer cells, vital signs and other biochemical. We can tell when the Primal is not real and certainly not resolving.

We have had success in eliminating pain but we will not do it on an outpatient basis.  It needs careful control and supervision plus a process that addresses the imprint.  The latter is what is missing with the therapies done in addiction centers.  All that is lacking for them is science.  Do they do biochemical controls, natural killer cells?  Stress hormones?  No. It is booga booga medicine, joined at the hip with medical centers treating addiction who also seem to leave science behind.  All remain on the top level, ignoring even that deep levels even exist.

What we will look for in our therapy are changes in neurobiology to verify what we are doing. Our job is to stop the terrible suffering, not just to replace it with this false piste or another.  Addicts are hurting and need help, not in an addiction center masked with lovely surroundings and great food and exercise, but with a therapy that recognizes their pain and does something about it.  May I suggest Primal Therapy?