Continuing Dr. Arthur Janov’s May 2016 book Beyond Belief:
“p. 61 Heavy pains with no place to go just pressures the cortex into concocting an idea commensurate with the feeling.
The feeling itself makes no sense since the original feeling has no scene with it nor verbal capacity; it was laid down in a preverbal time without context, save for the feeling itself.
We cling to those ideas as strongly as the feelings driving us are.
Sometimes we argue with someone not realizing that we are battling a defense which is implacable. They don’t want to hear what we have to say. They want to protect their psyche.
p. 63 Suffocation at birth is registered not as an idea, but as a physiologic fact. It becomes an idea when the brain evolves enough to produce ideas. Then it can produce, ‘There is no air in here.’
A slightly stifling atmosphere in the present can set off this great pain and with it an exaggerated response. ‘I have to leave this woman because she stifles me.’
p. 64 It doesn’t matter about the facts we know if we cannot stop drinking or if we cannot maintain a relationship with someone else.
p. 68 My task is to examine why individuals adopt belief systems, whatever they are, and how certain feelings provoke specific kinds of belief systems..to demonstrate how feeling feelings can alter those beliefs without once addressing the beliefs at all.
Deprogramming is not necessary. Probing need is. Resolving feelings seems to render belief systems inoperative.
p. 71 We are a nation and a world of seekers, a people who seek refuge in all manner of beliefs.
p. 75-76 Later in life, equipped with the cortical ability to substitute ideation for feeling, the traumatized baby can call upon a god to save him from his inner pain, even when he doesn’t know where the pain originated, or even that there is pain. He just calls upon a god to watch over him, to see that he gets justice, who won’t let him down, and above all, who will help him make it into life.
p. 106 Neurosis is the only malady on the face of this earth that feels good..numbs the feeling. Numb feels good – not ‘good’ in the absolute sense, just not ‘bad.’
So we settle..we get numbed out and feel no pain and in return, life is blah blah. The person then feels she is not getting anything out of life and seeks out salvation or a guru in one form or another.”
“We are a nation and a world of seekers, a people who seek refuge in all manner of beliefs.” The patient’s story on pages 89 – 105 told of HORRIFIC damages inflicted by believers and the subsequent consequences!
Variations of his story with its adverse childhood experiences could be told by tens of millions of people in the US alone!
Why isn’t the internet flooded with 10+ million similar stories of people who have faced their realities, and effectively addressed the real causes of what’s wrong in their lives?
Said another way: Why is the internet instead flooded with stories of 10+ million people
- NOT facing their realities,
- Doing things to prolong their conditions, and
- Avoiding getting well?
The many reasons why people do things that don’t truly get them well are covered in Beyond Belief and Dr. Janov’s other publications. One obstacle for people who want enduring therapeutic help is the intentional misrepresentation of Primal Therapy.
Every day I look at the results of an automated search that uses “primal therapy” as the search term. Along with the scams and irrelevancies are the “scream” results.
This misrepresentation is addressed here:
“Primal Therapy is not Primal ‘Scream’ Therapy. Primal Therapy is not just making people scream; it was never ‘screaming’ therapy. The Primal Scream was the name of the 1st book by Dr. Janov about Primal Therapy.”
People who perpetuate the “scream” meme are only a few seconds away from search results that would inform them and their readers of accurate representations of Primal Therapy.
What purpose does it serve to misdirect people away from doing something to effectively address the real causes of what’s wrong in their lives?
I do thank you over and over because who quote the essence of my work which pleases me a lot. art janov
Thanks for this post and all the great posts you have on primal therapy. I am the owner of theprimalmind.com which has a similar theme: the presentation of primal theory as it is, not as it is misstated by so many others. I am currently a patient at the primal centre in Santa Monica.
Hi Bruce! Hope you’re doing well. Nice site – I bookmarked it.