Primal Therapy
What Is Primal Therapy?
Primal Therapy is a mode of psychotherapy which is said to cure neurosis. Neurosis is a mental illness which manifests itself as depression, anxiety or obsessive behaviour, but which cannot be traced back to any organic disease. Primal therapy is a therapeutic process which allows access to the source of pain.
This theory was brought forward by Dr. Arthur Janov. He believed that pain is the result of needs and feelings that have gone unfulfilled in early life. Traumatic experiences as a child are repressed and stored away deep within us. The pain may have gone unfelt at that time because the body did not know how to handle it. When a whole lot of such unresolved painful experiences are stored away we begin to lose access to our feelings and become neurotic.
Arthur Janov further explains that the repressed pain which we did not or were not able to give vent to at that time divides the self into two and each side is in conflict with the other. Obsessions and addictions set in because the mind is trying to deal with the outside world and with its inner pain. This split self becomes the cause of neurotic behavior which in extreme cases can be fatal.
So How Does One Deal With Pain?
Sometimes we find that there are certain actions or state of mind about us which we are unable to control or find a suitable explanation for. Certain situations in daily life trigger off these reactions and we may find ourselves getting angry or irritated for no logical reason. These, says, Janov come from old unresolved painful experiences which primal therapy can resolve.
Primal Therapy takes one back to the very source of that pain and makes the individual ‘live’ through it again. In doing so one is going through direct emotional experience. People can re-live the birth trauma or any particularly harrowing experience and in doing so purge themselves of their pain. It is a theory based on catharsis. Primal therapists believe that just talking about past experiences is only half the work done because it will have limited effectiveness. The real source of psychological pain will not have been reached until the patient is able to experience the same intensity of the pain again during therapy.
What Is The ‘Primal Scream’?
Arthur Janov believed that some experiences maybe so intense that they can only fully be expressed by loud screaming and patients are encouraged to do so. People who have suffered from corporal punishment, abuse or incest may have such deeply buried feelings which they are not even aware of, that screaming out loud will allow them to relive that experience for complete relief. On the other hand not everybody screams and that is perfectly alright too according to Dr. Janov.
How Long Does This Therapy Take?
Most people have to go through several sessions of therapy over months and even years sometimes. As with all healing therapies, it works for some and not for others. John Lennon was among the earliest of Dr. Janov’s patients and the most well known to date.
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