Is Primal Therapy woo?

[Iconoclast08]

Seriously, though, this thread just keeps going.

And it is a bit suspect...

It seems that repeatedly (check back through the old posts and see what I mean), a "New Blood" pops on and immediately posts on this thread with the same tired, flawed arguments in favor of PT. And same lack of evidence. And same lack of understanding of basic research methodology and contemporary evidence based practice in clinical psychology.

Am I paranoid, or do I detect a pattern?

 

[twerges]

"Operant conditioning?"

No, twerges. Post 184 demonstrates you know bupkis about operant conditioning.

I did not discuss operant conditioning in the post. I mentioned operant conditioning precisely once, in a two-word sentence. From that, you inferred how much I know about it, or don't know about it? How?

Was your inference valid? Do you know any more than bupkis about logic?

 

[twerges]

JREF prizes should be awarded to those who craftily deploy the word bupkis in any thread

It was awfully clever...

 

[twerges]

Iconoclast08,

It seems that repeatedly (check back through the old posts and see what I mean), a "New Blood" pops on and immediately posts on this thread with the same tired, flawed arguments in favor of PT.

There is almost no similarity between my remarks and those of the other "new blood" members, nor is there any similarity in prose style or in approach. Look more carefully.

And same lack of understanding of basic research methodology and contemporary evidence based [sic] practice in clinical psychology.

I have not discussed basic research methodology yet, so you would have no way of knowing whether I understand it or not.

Thus far, you have not produced even one criticism of any kind about my remarks. Instead, you have produced little "ad hominem" comments, plus a guffaw over the word "bupkis", plus a conspiracy theory.

I'm sure you're capable of pointing out any errors I might have made about "basic research methodology", instead of reverting to arguments about the person.

It seems that repeatedly (check back through the old posts and see what I mean), a "New Blood" pops up... Am I paranoid, or do I detect a pattern?

There have been 3 new posters recently who defended primal therapy. Is that enough to infer the kind of pattern that you're inferring?

Even if the 3 new posters were exactly the same person or were paid to be here, what difference would it make to any argument?

Am I paranoid, or do I detect a pattern?

Either you're paranoid, or you're inferring from inadequate evidence (most likely), or you're inferring incorrectly. You seem to be assuming that new members are probably in cahoots with each other.

If three "new blood" members join in succession and contribute to the same thread, does that mean they're probably colluding with each other? Have you gathered any evidence? What other possibilities are there? Apply scientific skepticism to your own suggestion.

Here's some evidence you may have missed. There is a link to this very thread, on the home page of the website DebunkingPrimalTherapy.com. If you type "primal therapy" into google, that home page comes up about 4th. In fact, I mentioned that homepage (and the link to this thread) in my initial post, which you claim to have read. So. Can you think of any possibilities (besides conspiracy) of how 3 people would have arrived here.

 

[twerges]

Hello Moochie. Thanks for your civil and informative post.

I'm skeptical about a great number of things, including people's motivations, so while I to you appear as yet another anonymous voice in a very large pool of such voices, the same holds true for what you represent to me. The comments we make are either plausible and believable, or they're not. My purpose in saying what I say about PT is to answer a query that was posted here. I have no ulterior motive and do not "push" any particular answer for what may trouble individuals who might read what I write. I suggested the Ellis book because for some it can be a very helpful, cheap (if not free) alternative to months or years and thousands of dollars spent on "therapies" for which there is little or no evidence of efficacy and which are sometimes, as in the case of PT, based on the theoretical creations of people who themselves evince behavior that, to me, appears highly questionable.

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.

At my age (58), I have very little reason to think one approach to emotional problems is superior to another, and this is based on my own experience and what we have learned about the subject in the decades since Freud and Jung et al. I do think that prevention is far preferable to all treatments extant today, and that for people like me, perhaps pharmacology is "the answer," at least until something better comes along.

I definitely agree that prevention is preferable to treatment.

I hope you find the answer you seek.

On the subject of pharmacology, I've found the site (URL) to be informative and illuminating.

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.

 

[twerges]

Hello Dancing David.

So I ask you again, what recent large scale studies have shown that the 'dodo bird conjecture' is valid? It may have been a given at the time you went to school, but it may not be valid.

I have reconsidered my belief in the dodo bird conjecture, as a result of the informative paper linked to by Prof Yaffle.

So the data would show that there is a common basis for the disorders and that there was a reason to lump them together.

Didn't Hans Eyesenck publish an important paper with a factor analysis showing that there is only one factor for neurosis? I seem to remember that Eyesenck's paper on that matter formed the basis of the "neuroticism" scale of the big 5 personality inventory and the NEO-PI.

I found a paper by Eyesenck which sums up some research (Eyesenck, 1991). From the paper: "Furthermore, the phenotypic correlations between Neuroticism and the symptom scales are high, indicating that the same factors contribute to variation in all three scales. Anxiety and Depression scores are highly correlated with each other and with Neuroticism scores... virtually all the environmental variation in Neuroticism and scores on the DSSI Anxiety and Depression subscales has a general effect on all scales. Long-term environmental effects contribute to all traits simultaneously."

You can google for that paper. Large sections of it are available online. Unfortunately, I cannot post any URLs.

I will stop here rather than continue into why outdated research (especially in psychology) may not be valid, I will merely repeat what I stated before:
-lack of stringent definitions
-lack of observable metrics
-lack of controls and protocols to control experimental bias

I grant that Janov has not produced any stringent definitions, observable metrics, or protocols to control experimental bias. However, it seems quite possible to produce operational definitions and experimental controls in this case. I'm only claiming that primal therapy is based upon a scientifically testable hypothesis, and therefore is not similar to homeopathy or psi phenomena as was alleged in this thread.

I also have alleged that primal therapy is plausible. I was thinking of research which shows that: adult psychopathology is strongly correlated with trauma (Larkin and Read, 2008; David et al, 2008); psychopathology could be induced by trauma, in humans (PTSD) and in animals; and that delayed grief reactions exist (Bonnano and Kaltman, 2001). Furthermore, I also have informal evidence which I thought was relevant. For example, I had a friend who underwent severe trauma several years previously, and who appeared to be undergoing emotional reactions which would have been appropriate to the original event. In combination, those pieces of evidence suggested the possibility that trauma can cause psychopathology in some people, and that a delayed emotional reaction to trauma might partly explain psychopathology in some of them. I am stating a hypothesis here.

There's a book which summarizes a lot of research about the trauma/psychopathology connection, called "The Truth About Mental Illness" by Whitfield.

I would like to provide more references, but I don't have my copy of that book available. There seems to be a tremendous amount of research on this topic.

Refs:
Eyesenck, H. Neuroticism, Anxiety, and Depression. Psych Inquiry. 1991; 2(1): 75-81.
Larkin W, Read J. Childhood trauma and psychosis: Evidence, pathways, and implications. J Postgrad Med. 2008 Oct-Dec;54(4):287-93
David M, Ceschi G, Billieux J, Van der Linden M. Depressive symptoms after trauma: is self-esteem a mediating factor J Nerv Ment Dis. 2008 Oct;196(10):735-42.
Bonanno GA, Kaltman S. The varieties of grief experience. Clin Psychol Rev. 2001 Jul;21(5):705-34.

 

[Dancing David]

I had typed an extended response this morning but then fumble typed and lost the post. Ooops.

I think that this summary you posted of Eyesenck will probably do as well as anything, before I read the paper.

"Furthermore, the phenotypic correlations between Neuroticism and the symptom scales are high, indicating that the same factors contribute to variation in all three scales. Anxiety and Depression scores are highly correlated with each other and with Neuroticism scores... virtually all the environmental variation in Neuroticism and scores on the DSSI Anxiety and Depression subscales has a general effect on all scales. Long-term environmental effects contribute to all traits simultaneously."

Correlations, that is great, do they happen to be above 68%, that would really indicate a strong correlation.

‘indicating that the same factors’ : not really correlation does not imply causation in the least. Again you would have to have a very high correlation and some mechanism ,that is demonstrated. So speculative.

And then the assertion that there is again some combination of these traits. But no demonstration of utility in doing so, which is what I was getting at.

I believe you stated that there was (according to Janow) some reason to use the term ‘neurosis’ and that the PT was somehow effective in helping relieve symptoms. That is what I contest,
first off ‘neurosis’ is such a vague term that it provides little utility or distinction.
Second that there is a mechanism by which ‘neurosis’ is created.
Third that somehow PT changes that mechanism.

So Twerges that leaves us where we were before, what mechanism is involved, how does PT effect it? That is for proponents of PT to explain and then explore.

Given that the ‘obvious’ treatment of anxiety and depression in CBT has some overlap, with depression sometimes having desensitization but anxiety predominately so. I would argue they do have two separate sources. There is overlap in the biological mechanisms of depression and anxiety, with much anxiety being treated through the treatment of depression.

However I still don’t see a mechanism for Janow’s therapy to be effective. What causes the ‘neurosis’ and how is it resolved by PT?

 

[Dancing David]

Larkin W, Read J. Childhood trauma and psychosis:

Is interesting but they have totally ignored confounding factors, one that parents with serious mental health issue may be more likely to be abusive, therefore the correlation between childhood trauma and psychosis is not necessarily a causative one.
Second what is the rate of trauma in the population and what is the rate of people in that group who develop psychosis in later in life? If they sample the general population of people who have undergone trauma and match the demographics and then they find a much high rate in trauma survivors than the general population that is indicative.

But I am sorry, this is old psychoanalytic theory in a prom dress, refrigerator mother and all that, lets us blame parents for psychosis.


David M, Ceschi G, Billieux J, Van der Linden M. Depressive symptoms after trauma

I am not sure how this would support your case, except that there are people who have a cognitive component on top of their somatic depression in response to trauma. that is already part of current theories. That some people will have higher cognitive components than others. So I don't see the relevance to PT.

Bonanno GA, Kaltman S. The varieties of grief experience

this does not support either PT of the Dodo hypothesis, it states that grief counseling is effective. however it does not define it in the abstract , nor does it say what brand of treatment is used.

 

[John Smith]

Twerges

To respond to Twerges,

Micheal Shermer explains very well how intelligent people can believe wierd things. His basic message is that they are very good at using there skills to defend positions that are not supported by the evidence.

By supporting a belief system like primal therapy, that has in it an incorrect model of mind, and in supporting a belief system will have profound opportunity costs to young people if they were to believe in it, I think you are not doing anyone any favors, Twerges.

If you divert your skills towards something that would help, and still be in keeping with some of your altruistic motivations, you could work on preventing real trauma in real families in real situations. But as soon as you start getting wacky about it, you will lose credibility and change nothing.

I understand you are intelligent and educated twerges, but a bachelors degree in which some of your professors tell you that anything goes in the field of psychotherapy does not properly prepare you to educate people on how to evaluate knowledge. As a result of this you have been picking and choosing articles and not showing sufficient ability to evaluate their scientific value.

Primal therapy is a cult, and I strongly warn young people from joining. The primal therapy community, even today, consistently undermines member's trust in science and conventional knowledge, leading to confusion, desperation and severe opportunity costs in all areas except the pseudoscience industry.
Not only does primal theory undermine trust in solid knowledge bases, it also instills an awful belief in its followers that they (and everyone) are full of terrible forgotten traumas, full of pain, and not their "real" selves. It often breaks up families, and I believe has led directly to suicides.


I proudly offer the Debunking Primal Therapy website to readers, and ask readers to ignore Twerges previous (and future) attempts to undermine trust in it's contents.

In particular, there is a fully cited article on the site that completely carves primal therapy up in several different ways, called The Scientific Revolution Claim that should be read by all potential primal therapy sign-ups.

Editor Debunking Primal Therapy dot com

 

[DuckTapeFileMan]

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.

 

[Moochie]

<snip>


I proudly offer the Debunking Primal Therapy website to readers, and ask readers to ignore Twerges previous (and future) attempts to undermine trust in it's contents.

In particular, there is a fully cited article on the site that completely carves primal therapy up in several different ways, called The Scientific Revolution Claim that should be read by all potential primal therapy sign-ups.

Editor Debunking Primal Therapy dot com

Thanks for posting. I've pointed more than a few people to your site.

It shouldn't but it does (still) surprise me how many people swallow utter nonsense wholesale, usually because the pseudoscience on offer provides a nice "fit" with whatever ails them. PT is so seductive to people who're at a psychological low ebb -- to some it seems like manna from heaven. I should know -- I was one of them once.


M.

 

[John Smith]

This thread has been a valuable contribution for those weighing up whether to buy into primal therapy. I think the responses by some of the skeptics to twerges were great, and I wish I had had access to such great arguments against PT in the early 1990s. Thanks everyone.

DuckTapeFileMan:
You may be right - there may be a dispositional (personality, though molded in childhood in your example) cause for what Janov does -

However, look out for the Fundamental Attribution Error - that misunderestimates the role of the situation as a cause of behavior in others (we explain our own behavior with situational explanations a lot of the time, while we explain others' behavior with internal dispositions too much of the time).

There are other plausible possible explanations available - for example: social influence - or in other words the situational influences on Janov. Such things such as education in Freudian theory, missing testability in school (or rejecting it as naive later), the immaturity of psychological theories of the time, the effect of people around him, the effect of other cultic movements and spill-over "knowledge" from them in LA, the temptation of money (it makes all the difference to life in Los Angeles), the cultural changes of the 1960s, wanting to be cool in changing times, etc.

And importantly, I think Janov learnt from Freud that personality (molded in childhood in these theories) can explain almost everything in terms of human behavior, neglecting the situation, and that rational theories are more important than empirical evidence in their importance in science. I'm not that his theories were rational, I'm just saying he was more theoretical than empirical - a bit like string theory getting ahead of the evidence - only much worse and with much less conceptual validity.

MOOCHIE:

Thanks very much, I was too one of the thetans - ahem, I mean primals. I was "super-real" man. (more like I was rude and individualistic and thought that was somehow profoundly "real" and other such nonsense).


To be clear, I really like the type of people who go to primal therapy - primarily because they are paradoxically very intelligent, and usually quite progressive politically (although that can change later on). So I try to keep away from attacking primal people, and concentrate on primal theory. But it is difficult sometimes because if nobody challenges the "post-primal-people" claims of "realness" or general superiority, then other people suffer (nice people too who deserve better) by being drawn into the perpetuated lie.
However, I feel disappointed when they group together and continually influence each other in a way that prevents them from moving away from pseudoscience. Even when they understand primal therapy is not "all that", they still carry forward a deep mistrust of conventional knowledge and practices - often impeding their opportunities and involvement in society.

 

[Moochie]

<snip>

MOOCHIE:

Thanks very much, I was too one of the thetans - ahem, I mean primals. I was "super-real" man. (more like I was rude and individualistic and thought that was somehow profoundly "real" and other such nonsense).


To be clear, I really like the type of people who go to primal therapy - primarily because they are paradoxically very intelligent, and usually quite progressive politically (although that can change later on). So I try to keep away from attacking primal people, and concentrate on primal theory. But it is difficult sometimes because if nobody challenges the "post-primal-people" claims of "realness" or general superiority, then other people suffer (nice people too who deserve better) by being drawn into the perpetuated lie.
However, I feel disappointed when they group together and continually influence each other in a way that prevents them from moving away from pseudoscience. Even when they understand primal therapy is not "all that", they still carry forward a deep mistrust of conventional knowledge and practices - often impeding their opportunities and involvement in society.

Oh, I agree entirely re attacking "primal people" -- it would be hypocritical of me to do so for one thing, and another thing is that I understand where such folk are coming from. It's far more sensible to just ask prospective "primalers" to ask themselves just how real are the claims made for PT. Fortunately, there is enough information available and accessible today for people to to make a more considered choice about such matters. I can't really blame anyone for wanting what PT (and $cientology, and this or that "Guru") purport to offer. (I still buy lottery tickets in the vain hope that one day I'll win.)


M.

 

[twerges]

response

By supporting a belief system like primal therapy, that has in it an incorrect model of mind, and in supporting a belief system will have profound opportunity costs to young people if they were to believe in it, I think you are not doing anyone any favors, Twerges.

If you divert your skills towards something that would help, and still be in keeping with some of your altruistic motivations, you could work on preventing real trauma in real families in real situations. But as soon as you start getting wacky about it, you will lose credibility and change nothing.

It's generous of you to assume that I have "altruistic motivations," but in fact, I do not. My motivation for posting here was because I wanted to see how others would respond to my arguments.

I understand you are intelligent and educated twerges, but a bachelors degree in which some of your professors tell you that anything goes in the field of psychotherapy does not properly prepare you to educate people on how to evaluate knowledge. As a result of this you have been picking and choosing articles and not showing sufficient ability to evaluate their scientific value.

John, you make many suppositions in your remarks. You make suppositions about the extent of my education, about what was said to me by my professors ("anything goes in the field of psychotherapy"), about what I am trying to accomplish, about what causes me to "pick and choose", and so on. You have no way of knowing those things.

With regard to the comment about my "not showing sufficient ability." I'm amazed that you still make inappropriate personal remarks.

Primal therapy is a cult, and I strongly warn young people from joining.

That remark is just an assertion. You can repeat it all you want, in as many places as you like, but mere repetition gives it no additional weight.

You can also mention scientology in the same sentence as primal therapy. You have done so repeatedly. But it grants no additional credence to your cult claim. Instead, it appears to be a kind of guilt by association.

The primal therapy community, even today, consistently undermines member's trust in science and conventional knowledge, leading to confusion, desperation and severe opportunity costs in all areas except the pseudoscience industry.

There is no primal therapy community. Many of the primal participants had little or no interaction with each other outside of a once-weekly psychotherapy group session. Although various participants were friends with each other, the group as a whole never did anything together outside of the once-weekly psychotherapy session, nor did most participants live near each other.

Not only does primal theory undermine trust in solid knowledge bases, it also instills an awful belief in its followers that they (and everyone) are full of terrible forgotten traumas, full of pain, and not their "real" selves.

Most people who went to primal therapy had never forgotten their traumas. I think that's why they wanted to do primal therapy.

I proudly offer the Debunking Primal Therapy website to readers, and ask readers to ignore Twerges previous (and future) attempts to undermine trust in it's contents.

I'm not sure people should just ignore arguments against the debunking website. Nor should they just have "trust in it's [the debunking site's] contents." That would not be skeptical.

I have serious doubts about the accuracy and completeness of testimony found on the debunking website. I have been able to check the accuracy of some of that testimony, because I witnessed the events which the debunking website described. In the cases where I could check the accuracy, I found the testimony on the debunking website to be extremely distorted.

I am not dismissing all of the debunking website. Most of that website consists of articles regarding science, scientific method, etc. Those articles were quite reasonable (in my opinion) and deserve serious consideration. I am not addressing those articles here.

However, the debunking website also unfortunately includes a few articles of one-sided anonymous testimony by the debunking authors themselves, regarding bitter conflicts which they apparently underwent with other primal patients. Those sections were not scientific, and may not be accurate. Those sections consist of testimony from the debunking authors, who have issues with provoking conflicts and who are not at all objective or reliable witnesses to the conflicts they undergo.

This is a skeptic's forum. Whatever the demerits of primal therapy, no matter how much it lacks outcome studies to prove its efficacy, we still cannot just trust one-sided anonymous accusations against it which somebody added to their personal website.

In particular, there is a fully cited article on the site that completely carves primal therapy up in several different ways, called The Scientific Revolution Claim that should be read by all potential primal therapy sign-ups.

I just read that article on the debunking website. I agreed with most of the article. I certainly agree that primal therapy is not a paradigm shift.

...John, I'm not sure this is the best forum for us to debate this topic any further. There have already been complaints that this thread is overlong. Although I don't mind discussing this topic, I suspect that some other people here might mind it.

If you want, I would be happy to participate in a debate on your website, so long as you post my entire replies without edition, and so long as you do not conceal evidence which you have, when I ask for it. (I won't ask for anyone's identity). In the same manner, if you have any objection to anything I wrote on my website, I would be happy to post your reply in full.

If you wish to discuss this issue in any other forum, I'd be happy to go there. Otherwise, I think maybe we should wait for some indication from others on this forum that they are interested in continuing this discussion any longer.

My best,
twerges

 

[Moochie]

twerges, as long as the discussion remains germane to the topic, and within the parameters of the MA, it can go on for as long as necessary. What individual posters think about the thread's length is immaterial.


M.

P.S. You refer to your own website in your post and I couldn't find a link to it in this thread, so would you mind PMing me the URL sometime? Thanks.

 

[commandlinegamer]

Evidence, evidence, evidence.

I first became aware of Primal Therapy browsing my university bookshop. I don't recall specifically why I was checking out the psychology section (it was over 20 years ago), but the image on the spine of the book intrigued me: a bald head with a mouth screaming out from the skull).

I bought it, read it and was hooked. The biggest impression it made on me was the case histories, people physically experience tissue growth, throwing away their glasses (I have short sight), etc.

It's very seductive; but looking back on it 20 years after I first read The Primal Scream, three or four cases don't add up to that much. How many patients have undergone therapy in the past 40-years at the Primal Centre/Institute? Hundreds? Thousands? Surely enough that life-changing effects could be measured and if they were that effective, why isn't the rest of the scientific community beating a path to his door?

I can't see PT surviving beyond the life of Janov unless he can provide complete facts and figures on its efficacy, successes and failures.

 

[twerges]

website

P.S. You refer to your own website in your post and I couldn't find a link to it in this thread, so would you mind PMing me the URL sometime? Thanks.

Hello Moochie.

My website is located at rombastic dot org. It was written shortly after the debunking website came online, and has not been updated in a long time.

-tw

 

[Moochie]

Hello Moochie.

My website is located at rombastic dot org. It was written shortly after the debunking website came online, and has not been updated in a long time.

-tw

Thanks twerges, I've read it. I've nothing to add -- we're all entitled to our opinions (and feelings).


M.

 

[John Smith]

Hi twerges, and all,

I appreciate your response, I understand your perspective, however I was at the Primal Center for a longer period than you, I saw behind the scenes more, and I was involved in the therapist training. As a result of these experiences, and in light of the bait and switch technique (that you seem content with for yourself - compare what you say primal therapy is to Janov's claims, there is a discrepancy) I will continue to dissuade people to falling into the craziness of primal-therapy-land. It was a cult when I was there, and it will continually fall in and out of being a cult due to the persistence of hope in Janov's original, and false claims, the undermining of critical thinking in favor of intuition, and the offshoot movements of those stripped of critical thinking and trust in conventional knowledge.

I live in Los Angeles, and there is a small primal community, which I don't begrudge because social support is important. However, I am speaking from CURRENT EXPERIENCE (SEPT 2009) when I say primal people undermine critical thinking skills in each other, back up mildly paraniod views of conventional knowledge, and this can put them at risk and limiting opportunities. When I very recently tried to help a good friend escape the dreadful and longlasting brainwashing of primal therapy literature, it becomes apparent to me that it is simplest and most ethical to call primal therapy a cult, even though there is nuance to that, which your contribution helped balance. I appreciate what you wrote, but my message stays the same : to 18, 19 or 20 year olds, searching on the web in search of an escape from anxiety, religionless but looking for more meaning, I reiterate: primal therapy is a cult that involves rebirthing, venting, disavowing culture and parents, personal history revision, and often the idolization of therapists that are really not the best, nor as prestigious as they claim.

To summarize quickly the problems with primal therapy: splitting up families (not always), blaming parents unfairly, danger of false memory creation, literature-caused attitude change can be detrimental (not always), lack of oxygen in birth relivings, danger of stroke, artery damage and heart problems from anger venting, incorrect models of mind can cause mis-navigation in life, poor planning and poor prediction, neglect of social, financial and situational causes can prevent real solutions, believing in treating-oneself-first-in-order-to-save-the-world reduces the likelihood of really helping others directly, believing in nutty things can have a turn-off effect on the opposite sex outside the belief system (varies: depending on status and looks - although can at least cause relationship problems), etc

okay, that's enough from me, I only mean well by attacking primal therapy literature and practice because these things clearly hurt many of my friends lives, (it's not about my own personal experience, I try to be more objective than that). In fact, in many of my primal friends families there were little naturalistic experiments, whereby the sibling(s) who did not fall for primal therapy did much better in life than those who did fall for primal therapy. not proof, but enough to investigate for iatrogenic effects.

 

[Jack Rainbow]

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