Is Primal Therapy woo?

[Jack Rainbow]

have you ever experienced any kind of therapy yourself, please?

 

[Jack Rainbow]

I've come to the conclusion that Arthur Janov hasn't really applied what he says to himself, in that his own bad childhood means that his brain is wire in such a way that, although he may have had lots of primals, and removed a lot of his pain, his perception of reality is still under the influence of his past mental and neurological development; he seems to think that if you lift the veil of trauma,and repression that you have a clear, unbiased view of the world, but I think that really we all just have a unique outlook....there is no "the truth"...maybe his need to bang on about PT to the world, is his acting out his childhood need to be heard, and understood.

what therapy have YOU undergone that you speak of it so critically?

 

[Jack Rainbow]

Hello Moochie. Thanks for your civil and informative post.



I certainly never suspected that you had an ulterior motive. Your account of primal therapy at that center in australia seemed quite plausible to me.

I certainly found Ellis's book to be sensible. But I have not read it in quite a few years.



I definitely agree that prevention is preferable to treatment.

I hope you find the answer you seek.



That site looks extremely interesting. I like the idea of "abolishing the biological substrates of suffering."

I found a link on that site called "future opioids" which looks interesting.

As a coincidence, I was reading a paper recently on the involvement of the NMDA receptor in opioid tolerance. The paper claimed that experimental non-competitive NMDA antagonists may lack the psychomimetic side effects of ketamine and may attenuate or even reverse mu opioid tolerance. That would certainly be relevant to abolishing (or rather attenuating) the biological substrates of suffering, at least among people have chronic or recurrent nociceptive pain.

Interesting stuff. Thanks for the link.

wow, you must be very clever to understand all those long words. Is there any chance you could say that more simply, please, so I can understand what you mean?

 

[Jack Rainbow]

FACING THE WOLF

Facing the Wolf: Inside the Process of Deep Feeling Therapy by Theresa Sheppard Alexander.

I think a lot has been said mistakenly about this kind of therapy, mostly by those who have not experienced any kind of therapy themselves. Theresa Alexander's book seems, to me, a very good description of the experience of the patient undergoing this kind of therapy. I lived in a therapeutic community based around the work of Janov when I was 20, in 1971 and have always admired his discovery of working with the emotions, with feelings. Please, people, don't sneer angrily at me. I don't recommend this therapy to anyone except to say it works for me. You don't like it? Don't go there, do something else. Just let ME do what I need to, OK? Also, if you must comment, please take the trouble to read the man's books before doing so.

 

[Jack Rainbow]

YOU

So what kind of therapy have you experienced?

 

[abaddon]

Have you ever experienced therapy of any kind yourself, please?

Yup. So what?

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Yup. So what?

Seems quite clear to me. You obviously have some nasty engrams you need audited away.

 

[arthwollipot]

Wow, 10-year thread necromancy is a pretty good trick.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Wow, 10-year thread necromancy is a pretty good trick.

AHHH OWEEE Oh It's a miracle!

 

[jsfisher]

Have you ever experienced therapy of any kind yourself, please?

To whom was this addressed? You are responding to a thread that had sat idle for over a decade before your post.

Also, why do you consider your question relevant? Personal experience would constitute anecdotal evidence, nothing scientific. Do you have anything to offer in support of primal therapy beyond "I believe"? In anticipation of "I/someone I know/lots of people tried it, and it worked great", I will point out that placebos can be very powerful. That's one of the reasons science doesn't deal in anecdotes nor equating correlation to causation.

 

[catsmate]

Seems quite clear to me. You obviously have some nasty engrams you need audited away.

But in answer to the OP question

Is Primal Therapy woo?

Yes, yes it is. A discredited bit of seventies quackery that hasn't died off because it's a profitable way of exploiting the gullible and vulnerable.

 

[catsmate]

<snip>

So does Screaming:
1. Increase female breast size
2. Cause hair growth
3. Change sexual orientation
4. Alleviate menstrual cramps

 

[Jack Rainbow]

Answer my question

To whom was this addressed? You are responding to a thread that had sat idle for over a decade before your post.

Also, why do you consider your question relevant? Personal experience would constitute anecdotal evidence, nothing scientific. Do you have anything to offer in support of primal therapy beyond "I believe"? In anticipation of "I/someone I know/lots of people tried it, and it worked great", I will point out that placebos can be very powerful. That's one of the reasons science doesn't deal in anecdotes nor equating correlation to causation.

Please, stop talking nonsense. My question to you, Mr Fisher, is very simple: Have you yourself undergone therapy of any kind? If you are so frightened of what others may think that you cannot answer this question, then I recommend you refrain from the discussion.

 

[kali1137]

Please, stop talking nonsense. My question to you, Mr Fisher, is very simple: Have you yourself undergone therapy of any kind? If you are so frightened of what others may think that you cannot answer this question, then I recommend you refrain from the discussion.

No one is talking nonsense. Please simply look at the date of the posts you were initially replying to. Those people you are angrily replying to haven't posted in this thread since 2009 and likely are no longer active on this forum. Does primal therapy make one lose all sense of date and time?

 

[dann]

Just let ME do what I need to, OK?

Has anybody in this forum tried to stop you?

Primal Therapy (Rational Wiki)

Janov contended the therapy could cure everything from stuttering to drug addiction to epilepsy, and might even lead to an end to war.
He included homosexuality as a curable condition, although the American Psychiatric Association took it off the list of psychiatric disorders in 1973.
(...)
As with many other emotional-release therapies of its time, primal therapy is today widely rejected by mental health professionals as unscientific and ineffectual.
Arthur Janov, psychologist behind 'primal scream' therapy, dies aged 93 (The Guardian, Oct. 4, 2017)

 

[Athyrio]

So what kind of therapy have you experienced?

From which side?

 

[varwoche]

Please, stop talking nonsense. My question to you, Mr Fisher, is very simple: Have you yourself undergone therapy of any kind? If you are so frightened of what others may think that you cannot answer this question, then I recommend you refrain from the discussion.

I experienced primal therapy. It was in a group setting, so I have my own experiences plus observations of others to draw upon. There's an immediate release that screaming and punching a pillow could also provide, followed by return to form. I consider it woo. Then again, I consider a lot of psychotherapy as woo.

 

[varwoche]

Facing the Wolf: Inside the Process of Deep Feeling Therapy by Theresa Sheppard Alexander.

I think a lot has been said mistakenly about this kind of therapy, mostly by those who have not experienced any kind of therapy themselves. Theresa Alexander's book seems, to me, a very good description of the experience of the patient undergoing this kind of therapy. I lived in a therapeutic community based around the work of Janov when I was 20, in 1971 and have always admired his discovery of working with the emotions, with feelings. Please, people, don't sneer angrily at me. I don't recommend this therapy to anyone except to say it works for me. You don't like it? Don't go there, do something else. Just let ME do what I need to, OK? Also, if you must comment, please take the trouble to read the man's books before doing so.

So did I. How many such communities were there? Did we live in the same community in west Los Angeles?

 

[Jack Rainbow]

Community

So did I. How many such communities were there? Did we live in the same community in West Los Angeles?

No. This was in Northampton UK. I would caution you to be very careful about taking therapy from inauthentic/unauthorised people. The only center of primal therapy that I know to be authentic is the Primal Therapy Centre founded by Arthur Janov in Santa Monica, California. There is the London Association of Primal Psychotherapists and they are in my opinion valid practitioners, but if you want the real deal, the folk in Santa Monica derive directly from Janov and I trust them 100%

 

[varwoche]

No. This was in Northampton UK. I would caution you to be very careful about taking therapy from inauthentic/unauthorised people. The only center of primal therapy that I know to be authentic is the Primal Therapy Centre founded by Arthur Janov in Santa Monica, California. There is the London Association of Primal Psychotherapists and they are in my opinion valid practitioners, but if you want the real deal, the folk in Santa Monica derive directly from Janov and I trust them 100%

In my cynical view, this is a distinction between bs and imitation bs.

I have no idea if the practitioners in my situation were authentic/authorized. I wasn't concerned because i became involved with this community for reasons other than therapy.