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Welcome! This is a website designed to give a detailed and well researched criticism and evaluation of primal therapy. It is a critique on the treatment and theory which was first developed and popularized by Arthur Janov (Ph.D.).
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August 2011
It is 4 years since debunkingprimaltherapy.com was launched and it is a good time for an updated commentary on primal therapy. I am a little disappointed in some people’s understanding of primal therapy – both those who dismiss it as something to do with screaming, and those who believe in it.
For those dismissive of primal therapy, that is okay so long as the criticism is for the right reasons. Primal therapy is not crazy nor are the people who believe in it. Some academics seem to think that primal therapy is some amusingly harmless scream therapy that should be rejected because it seems self-evident that screaming does no good. This understanding is simplistic and does not helpfully explain what is wrong with primal therapy. Screaming is not an essential component of primal therapy anymore, so ridiculing screaming hardly helps potential patients make an informed decision.
To be fair to those who ridicule the scream aspect of primal therapy, what primal therapy is really is obscured – so it is difficult to know how to criticize it. It is presented on websites and in more recent primal therapy books as some kind of natural therapy that is about love and being real and reactive. So to the potential patient, saying “ha ha, we all know screaming is silly” does not address the modern presentation of primal therapy.
A more telling and incisive criticism is only found by digging deeper. Unbeknownst to many, primal therapy has at its core four assumptions that are wrong:
Assumption 1: All experience is stored as a memory in the brain (or in the cells of the body). (see Loftus, & Loftus, 1980, - a journal article questioning Wilder Penfield’s idea of permanent storage of all experience)
Assumption 2: Traumatic memories are repressed and can be retrieved in exact form in therapy (see the book Remembering Trauma, 2003, by McNally)
Assumption 3: Catharsis theory: feelings build up in the person’s system, and if they are not released they become pent-up – doing damage to both the physical and mental system. Releasing emotions removes the emotion out of the system – allowing for improved health. (see the book Anger by Carol Tavris)
Assumption 4: Emotion memory is stored permanently and can be retrieved accurately years later. (see journal articles such as Levine, L., 1997, and the whole branch of emotion memory research that followed that year. Hint: emotion memory is malleable according to current day reappraisals).
These incorrect assumptions are the key pillars that need to be carefully debunked in order to help someone enchanted by primal therapy move on to better things. This typically is not the way primal therapy is dismissed – ridicule and amusement is usually used – but really we owe it to people to criticize it fairly and accurately.
On the other hand those who believe in primal therapy are getting it wrong at the other extreme of the spectrum. They respond to criticism about “screaming” quite rightly by saying that they do not even do much of that. But in responding to unfair criticism they become even more sure that they must be right. Some of them unforgivingly claim that they have scientific proof that primal therapy works. That is so unfair to those who may not understand why that claim may be false or exaggerated. Then there are those followers that echo that there is scientific evidence – and with more than one person reinforcing that belief it becomes fact within the group.
In reality, the attempts to add scientific proof to primal therapy are unreliable sources of information. One such example is an early 1970s paper conducted by primal trainees and therapists that claimed primal therapy reduced vital signs. There are many problems with this paper, but to pick just two: the patients could have reduced vitals due to dropping out of the rat race to join the primal therapy communal group, and the other problem is that the authors of the paper went on to form a communal therapy cult after which they were taken to court and stripped of their licenses.
So all in all, most people do not understand the real problem of primal therapy – to some it is a joke, to others it is a cure. I hope this website gives a little insight to a middle-ground of understanding that really gets to the underlying problems of primal therapy.
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“Scientific knowledge is public in a special sense…scientific knowledge does not exist solely in the mind of a particular individual. In an important sense, scientific knowledge does not exist at all until it has been submitted to the scientific community for criticism and empirical testing by others.”
How To Think Straight About Psychology(p. 10). Keith Stanovich (6th Ed, 2001). (see PEER REVIEW section).
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“Social psychology is filled with data showing that once a person makes a commitment in front of others about a position or belief; it is more likely that the person will cling to that position. Imagine the degree of commitment made by the people you met in this chapter: at their therapist’s command, they rolled and moaned, beat cushions…screamed, yelled, laughed, cried, insulted others, and were themselves humiliated and insulted.”
“Crazy” Therapies (p. 130), Margaret Singer Ph.D. and Janja Lalich Ph.D., (1996) (see CRITICAL BOOKS section)
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Top 10 Discredited Mental Health Treatments
1. Angel therapy for treatment of mental/behavioral disorders
2. Use of pyramids for restoration of energy
3. Orgone therapy (use of orgone energy accumulator) for treatment of mental/behavioral disorders
4. Crystal healing for treatment of mental/behavioral disorders
5. Past life therapy for treatment of mental/behavioral disorders
6. Future lives therapy for treatment of mental/behavioral disorders
7. Treatments of posttraumatic stress disorder caused by alien abduction
8. Rebirthing therapies for treatment of mental/behavioral disorders
9. Color therapy for treatment of mental/behavioral disorders
10. Primal scream therapy for treatment of mental/behavioral disorders
For a summary of the original Norcross, Koocher, and Garafalo article summary see “Discredited Psychological Treatments and Tests: A Delphi Poll” or to see the book from which the list is taken (p. 198) by clicking on the book to the side of the list.
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“Many teachers lament the woeful lack of science education of their undergraduate students…This problem is also widespread in graduate clinical psychology programs and psychiatric residencies, where students can earn a PhD or an MD without ever having considered the basic epistemological assumptions and methods of their profession…[In a study of psychiatrist training] rarely do they learn to be skeptical, ask questions, analyse research, or consider alternative explanations or treatments.” (page xi)
[In the footnote it is noted that not all clinical psychologists are poor scientists]
“By the 1960s and 1970s, as the popularity of psychoanalysis was waning, new therapies were emerging. It was easy to tell how pseudoscientific they were…Martin Gross’s book The Psychological Society (1978) included …,primal scream therapy,…” (page xiii)
Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology, (edited by Lilienfeld, Lynn, Lohr) from the foreword essay “The Widening Scientist-Practitioner Gap,” written by social psychologist Carol Tavris, Ph.D.
[For a review of this book by Professor Colin Feltham, see the The Counselling Center website.]
What gets us into trouble
is not what we don’t know
It’s what we know for sure
That just ain’t so
- Mark Twain
This website is written with the protections of the U.S. Constitution’s first amendment (free speech and press) and the accepted rule in western science that theories and treatments can be criticized. These rights cannot be abridged by any means, including by Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP lawsuits, see http://www.gjs.net/web-slap.htm ).
The idea for the first article was originally inspired by social psychology and the widely accepted standards and rules of science (vs. pseudoscience). That article turned into sections 1 to 5 on this website. Then the website was created to provide a place for counterpoint information on primal therapy. Since then, other sources and evidence has also been drawn on. The aim is to show people what information is out there, and let them discover it for themselves, and decide for themselves. This critique and sharing of information is designed to make a positive constructive contribution and to help people.
Although it was not part of the original plan for this site, in response to requests from some readers this website grew to include more testimonial type evidence. Included are personal experiences of primal therapy, from more than one source, to further inform the potential consumer. However, those sections are not necessarily the most important on the site (the section on falsifiability I think is more important for example) and I suggest reading section 5 on how to weight testimonial evidence before reading those parts.
This website will protect primal therapy participant’s confidentiality while still informing future potential consumers.
This website in essence acts like the dissenting voice within the isolated in-group in the Asch experiments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRh5qy09nNw&feature=related (link updated Aug 2 2009)_____________________________________________________________
”We have come to claim our promise, O Oz.”
”What promise?” asked Oz.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the book written by Frank Baum.
Pseudoscience begins with a hypothesis—usually one which is appealing emotionally…—and then looks only for items which appear to support it. Conflicting evidence is ignored. Generally speaking, the aim of pseudoscience is to rationalize strongly held beliefs, rather than to investigate and find out what’s actually going on, or to test various possibilities. Pseudoscience specializes in jumping to ‘congenial conclusions,’ grinding ideological axes, appealing to pre-conceived ideas and to widespread misunderstandings.
From the website International Cultic Studies Association: Distinguishing Science and Pseudoscience
(see also sections 2-5 and DETECTING REAL SCIENCE for more on what is called the demarcation problem – the distinguishing between science and pseudoscience)
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In general, if your therapist is telling you that you have to get worse before you get better, is tearing you apart rather than building you up, is letting group members insult and ridicule you, is insisting that you must go deeper and deeper and deeper to feel the feeling, or is doing anything that smacks of old-fashioned ventilation theories, get out as fast as you can and look for a supportive therapist who will listen and respond with human decency.
“Crazy” Therapies (p. 131), Singer and Lalich, (1996).
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When you are studying any matter…
Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to believe, or
by what you think would have beneficial social effects if it were believed.
Look only and solely at what are the facts.
Bertrand Russell, 1959
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Disclaimer: The resources on this site are for information and education only. Information on this website is meant to support not replace the advice of a licensed health care or mental health care professional. Please consult your own physician for health care advice.
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