Nick Barton, a therapist from the Primal Institute (Los Angeles) wrote this after Arthur Janovs recent death: “I credit Arthur Janov’s ideas as a key factor in enabling me to have the life I have enjoyed since 1973. I am grateful to him for four things in particular: recognising the reality of primal pain, understanding its lifelong effects, realising it could be felt consciously and that this could facilitate recovery and revitalization”.
Primal Institute website: “It is with great sadness that we announce the death of our founder, Dr. Arthur Janov on Oct. 1st 2017. His life and work impacted countless people and the magnitude of his contribution to psychotherapy will only become clearer with the passage of time. Truth has a life of its own and some ideas have a longer gestation period before widespread acceptance. Dr. Janov's death is a personal and professional loss to those of us in the Primal Community. Dr.Janov was a prolific writer and he has left us all the greatest gift possible...the knowledge to alleviate suffering, to heal our wounds, and with new found strength, the courage to love again”.
In the Primal Center (Venice/Los Angeles), where Arthur Janov was active until recently, I suppose it will take some time before reactions will be expressed.
Take in this, dear reader: “His life and work impacted countless people and the magnitude of his contribution to psychotherapy will only become clearer with the passage of time. Truth has a life of its own and some ideas have a longer gestation period before widespread acceptance”. I am grateful to him for four things in particular: recognising the reality of primal pain, understanding its lifelong effects, realising it could be felt consciously and that this could facilitate recovery and revitalization”.
It is personal to me. 1976, I was suicidal. I had big pains since childhood and just did’nt know where to go or what to to with all my pain. I visited the local hospitals frequently, I ended up in a psychiatric clinic (yes by my free will). I tried verything they had to offer for months and that just convinced me that suicide was the only way away from all the pain. I was, by the way, professional in sports, psysically superfit and had good friends. That however did’nt take away the enormous anxiety, depressions or head/stomach-aces. So I bought a deadly dose of heroin and tried to get it done, but failed for some days.
Then I heard about that Arthur Janov would visit the hospital where I had been in psychiatric “care”. I went there 14 days later and met Janov, who explained what the limbic system was and about primal theory. 7 months later I was in Los Angelses for Primal Therapy under Arthur and Vivian Janovs supervision. It saved my life. I am aware of that few people are interested in that, aside from some of my closest friends and relatives..
But, you know, there are hundreds of millions of depressed people and at least millions of suicidal people. Even more people feel very little. As Arthur Janov (AJ) often stated during his last years, much of the current research underlines some of AJ-s main themes: Womb-life, birth and the first year on this planet are the foundations for a good life. Lack of love and care during this period often have horrible consequences.
It took desperation to do a thing like I did, to go to another part of the world and pay a lot of money for a therapy. I did not get disappointed. I mean, my life would have been gone - a long time ago - without Janovs Primal Therapy, so how can I regret it? In the 1970, in Sweden, it was nearly impossible for a guy in his early 20-s to understand how corrupt the western world is (and it’s much worse now). So I did’nt have any thoughts about “corrupted intentions” (via big pharma– being behind much of our education and medical systems - wanting us to consume drugs/pills) of the medical profession). I was to young for that and I do think most of the people I met in the hospital had good intentions. That however, did not help against depression and suicide-thoughts/feelings.
Now, many years later, I (+ hundreds of millions of others) am aware of that “big pharma”, the educationsystems and mainstream media in the western world, to a large degree, are ruled and owned/financed by the same people who runs the US military industrial complex. But we live in revolutionary times with lots of truths coming out in alternative internet-based media and truth will prevail over time.
Until his death, AJ had “Truth is revolutionary!” on his blog. That’s really how it is. Two years ago or so he wrote (on his blog) “Shrinks everywhere, forget everything you learned”. He meant that! I do too (I do have a Masters Degree in Psychology - an academic psychology-education is to the most part rubbish, lacking the most important truth of all!! Psychologist all over the world protect their jobs, their money. That is one major reason why Primal Therapy has not taken over a large part of the world of psychiatry and psychology. There are other reasons. One is that it is comfortable (and in most cases probably the least bad thing to do) to take drugs in order to suppress pain.
Further, we have peoples defenses against the very thought that their parents did not love them, and anti-truth corrupt politicians, university-professors, school-systems and mainstream media. They will do (largely, not everywhere) what their masters wants, namely to avoid truth and protect the current systems of money-flows. This might delay the "Primal Therapy Truth" from reaching the mainstream knowhow another 50 years, maybe a hundred, causing enormous amounts of unneccerary pain and certainly violence and crimes.
So, very few people are informed about Primal Therapy and they will normally get no information about it in their hospital or by their psychologist. Anyone who had their eyes or ears open during the Brexit and Trump-Clinton campaigns knows that mainstream media has almost no credibility when it comes to truth and fairness about the real power in politics and big money. They write and say what their owners demand. The same thing goes for almost all universities. They lose big money by being politically incorrect in research and research results. Therefore no money to research of real Primal therapy.
So the politicians and managers of universities, worldwide, has in most cases no credibility in the area of psychology, mental illness or psychiatry. They sit on power, money and the megaphones of the mainstream media for brainwashing in a direction wanted by their masters from the big foundations, big pharma and governments. But the truth has its own way and alternative media gives a lot of that right now, but not in the most important of all fields. I hope this will contribute to a the psychotherapy truth revolution!
But oh yes, there would be many difficulties in introducing Primal Therapy on a larger scale, and many mistakes has been done in the "Primal Community". How could it be different in a new science? A science about the stuff mankind have been wondering about, probably since humans were able to speak and formulate thoughts: Why are we depressed, where does it come from? What happened and what can we do about it? Why are also very rich people depressed and suicidal?
What happens now 2017, is (largely) that patients in real Primal Therapy are almost exclusively friends or relatives from Primal Therapy patients. Does someone really think that thousands and thousands of people would have paid 3-4-5-6 thousand dollars and continued with it and then recommended it to their friends and relatives if primal therapy was a hoax?
Yes Primal Psychotherapy costs a lot of money: It has no financial support from governments or universities and it takes a long time to learn the therapist-job. But what is more important, a fancier house or car or people lives?
Another thing, important to mention, is that no person really knows the most important thing about Primal Therapy, before he or she has been in real Primal Therapy for some time. It is just an intellectual thing to talk about it. In order to feel what it is about and the effects of it one have to feel the effects of "primals". It is not said in order to make other people feel small, but it is facts of life: If you want to know about the effects of Primal Therapy, you will have to ask Primal Therapy patients. Those are the only people on earth who knows and feels that. They are 10-15000 by now and have no power, just knowhow. In a decent non corrupt society careful research would have been done a long time ago about the effects of Primal Therapy, financed by universities.
A little research is done: See Primal Center Janov and research! There should be payed absolutely no attention to the opinions about primal therapy from university professors, psychologists, doctors or psychiatrists because they have any idea about the effects of primal therapy as they have not experienced the effects of primals. Further, they have an economical interest of ignoring or downplaying results of primal therapy. The introduction of primal therapy is the end of psychology and psychiatry, comparable to cryptocurrencies replacing fiat-money or alternative media replacing mainstream media.
Vivian Janov (Arthur Janovs first wife, running the Primal Institute for decades) once stated that a good way of describing Primal Therapy is "lots of desperately deep crying". That's true, I have seen and experienced it it for years. But when well done, it is done in a orderly conscious way and those feelings is nothing to be afraid of:
It goes down to feelings/pains like "not being loved, being left, feeling lonely, not being loved as we were, feeling helpless" and more. Like Arthur Janov wrote so many times in his books: To feel the repressed pain in full force, tha's what cures us. Read his books or go to the Primal Center Website if you want to learn much more. And no, I have zero (0) financial interest in it. Just a feeling of wanting to give others what Arthur Janov in particular but also other Primal Therapists gave me: A continuation of life.