Introduction
The purpose of this website is to examine primal therapy, developed by Arthur Janov (Ph.D. 1960 Claremont College, California), from the point of view of scientific method and social psychology. One goal is to look at the assumptions, theories and results of primal therapy. Another aim is to use my knowledge of primal therapy to give a more accurate assessment as compared to other articles I have read on the subject (critical reviews of primal therapy in the past have been criticized by primal participants because they say that the author(s) don’t really know anything about primal therapy).
It is necessary to outline my background a little so that the reader can assess whether I am qualified to write such an assessment of primal therapy. In the early nineties I began to read Arthur Janov’s primal books, and by the end of that decade had read every one of them, some more than once. Later, I went through 7 semesters of 
therapist training at Dr Janov’s Primal Center in Venice California (see evidence 1. below). Before and at the same time I was a participant in the therapy too, as was deemed necessary to become a primal therapist. With the initial goal to start the long process to get state licensure in California, (and returning to the Primal Center training perhaps later if I decided to be a primal therapist), I went back to school to prepare myself for graduate school. These goals changed slowly as I learned more in college. What I learned at school, in many courses in psychology and science combined with many first hand observations of primal therapy is what this article and website is about.
I have no financial interest in any psychotherapy, whether it is primal therapy or the other psychotherapies. I will likely not have any financial interests in the popularity, success or failure of any of the many psychotherapies in the future either. I have no product or service to sell in the realm of psychology or psychotherapy that may bias this evaluation.
I am still a student, although now quite an advanced student of psychology, so I would like you to consider this a student website. You should take information from sources like this, and attempt to check them in the sources I provide, or in the peer-reviewed literature. That is why my initial efforts on this website concentrated on referring to material by peer-reviewed scientists and encouraging readers to check them out directly. Let me give some examples: on this website I write about false memories and repression, so you should take that and then go and read material from more senior experts such as Elizabeth F. Loftus, PhD, or Richard J. McNally, PhD. In other cases I talk about pseudoscience, and you should take that and then go on to read material from an expert such as Scott O. Lilienfeld, PhD. I talk about social psychology, take that and then go on to read work by those more senior to myself, such as Carol Tavris, PhD, and Elliot Aronson, PhD. I am trying to show people what information is out there, and link them up with it.
Why write this website? After all, primal therapy is not a large movement within psychology these days; it was much more widespread in the 1970s. The reason is that there are many people I care about who believe in primal theory, it still significantly influences their lives (I believe in a negative way), and they still use it as their model of how the mind works. The information I have gathered in college I think is so important it would be unethical not to try and pass it on.
Believe it or not, this website is designed to help people who are/were primal therapy participants, those who are/were therapists, and those who are considering doing primal therapy in the future. Even if this website’s information is inconvenient initially, I think it can help both potential and current primal patients, and even help primal therapists make better choices for themselves for their future. Some of those I am aiming to inform have been through the therapy and wish to return to it. Some have been through the therapy and although they don’t want to return to it, they do still believe in the theory. Some have read the books and are saving money right now, or even considering loaning money to come to therapy. All of these people have been deeply affected by the books and therapy of Arthur Janov, as I was.
Back in 2006, when I heard about suicides of two former primal therapy participants (2005/2006), both of whom I had known, but had lost contact with, it got me thinking that I wish I could have passed on to them what I have learned in college the past couple of years. I also have been saddened by most of my primal therapy friends not getting what they expected from primal therapy (that is an understatement in most cases). I’ve seen too many people’s self-esteem and critical thinking damaged in primal therapy or by the primal therapy literature, and they were, and are, wonderful people.
Another aim of the website is to provide the kind of information and counter-arguments to young people that I wish had been available to me when I first picked up Janov’s books. I am not impressed by the lack of bravery shown by the previous generation, many of whom came to know early on that Primal Therapy was not as effective as advertised. Many understood the logical fallacies, the social influence, the lack of falsifiability, etc - yet even by the 1990s and 2000s none of that information was made widely available or widely published.
As flawed as this website may be, it is, in my opinion, the most detailed, sustained, and helpful criticism of primal therapy; and therefore probably the only source of criticism that has half a chance of reversing the deeply held beliefs about repression and birth trauma that were planted into the brains of the young or impressionable readers by Janov’s books.
In short, primal therapy is not the only hope, or “the last hope for some people” as I heard it said at the Primal Center. I now see that as almost cult-like. In fact many therapies have much better evidence for effectiveness (e.g. see Abnormal Psychology, 2005 or later editions, by Barlow and Durand). In addition it may be the actual believing in primal theory itself that may be iatrogenic of some problems. For example due to the negativity in primal-theory depression may be an iatrogenic outcome. Perhaps another risk is iatrogenic memory distortions such as false memories of trauma or a blackening of autobiographical memory for emotion. Disabusing one-self of the primal belief system may bring about improvement without any therapy.
In addition, I had been such a strong advocate for Primal Therapy in the past (and in fact got more than one person interested in it enough to start them saving and planning for therapy), there is a certain amount of guilt driving my attempt to remedy my initial mistaken beliefs, and their rather persuasive effect on others around me. By the end of this article and website I am sure that it will become clear to the reader as to why I had to write the website.
I sometimes refer to and quote material from reliable textbooks and peer-reviewed articles written by psychologists and scientists. Textbooks are in a sense peer-reviewed in that hundreds of professors check the text every year, and they are constantly corrected and updated. As boring as it sounds, I eventually found that textbooks and peer-reviewed articles are by far more reliable than the psychology section of your local commercial bookstore in which authors often bypass peer-review and publish pseudoscience direct to the public. The reason for my attempted referral to textbooks and peer-reviewed articles is for their skill in writing and clarity of step by step explanation. Also, these psychologists, those who are regularly published in peer-reviewed journals, are very qualified to write on these matters and their work has been edited, reviewed by peers and checked.
I should point out that in the same way evolution is not really a controversial theory amongst scientists, the information I draw on, the rules of science and the experimental findings of social psychology are also widely accepted by scientists. The rules of science, such as falsifiability, replication, peer review and experiment design are repeated in very similar form in chemistry, anthropology, physics, psychology, biology and I even found it repeated in exact form in philosophy (the philosophy of science). There is no real debate on this within science. It only is contested it seems by pseudoscience at the fringes of these subjects, and unfalsifiable theories are a problem for all of these subjects
One of the problems I am having in communicating these concepts to primal participants is that many often assume that they already know everything they need to know. They think they already know what science is, or what testability is, or what all the cognitive biases are. So I ask for an open mind, and not to just use their intelligence to reflexively argue against the material. I know that they have all the tools in primal theory to explain these things quickly and easily, I myself used these tools once. But I ask instead that you check the source material I am drawing from and look at the experiments and evidence. If you have an advanced degree even, allow yourself to go back to basics and look at the rules of science again.
This website does not yet go into enough detail to provide a full step by step argument, and it is up the reader to look more into it using other reliable sources, and leads are provided and highly recommended for further study.
It is terrible that all the dissent about primal therapy in past decades was and is not easily available, it seems it was largely suppressed or kept secret, or remained verbal, passed on only in private. Many people would not have ever become involved in it had they known about what primal therapy really is like in practice, or had they known the problems with the science claim. It is disappointing that there has been a kind of social loafing or fear of litigation within psychologists who fail to fully address primal therapy in public.
If you do not agree with some parts of this website, it is encouraged that you learn about these things independently with these three courses at any local college before you finally decide to do primal therapy: Introductory Psychology (often called General), Introductory Social Psychology and Introductory Clinical Psychology (often called Abnormal). The reason for these choices is that sometimes psychology courses give a better introduction to the scientific method than other science courses, because the method is so crucial when dealing with complicated systems; they also give a specific focus on the parts of the scientific method that are particularly important in psychology. I recommend discussing and trying to justify your primal-theory beliefs in class or with the lecturer (don’t keep quiet)- because this way you discover the amount of evidence supporting your ideas – and will be introduced to evidence that contradicts your ideas. I understand that not all states have inexpensive access to these courses, so an alternative would be to read some of the books recommended on this site.
Non-primal psychologists, investigators or journalists who wish to verify information and evidence will be helped willingly. Most information on this website has evidence in some medium to back it up. Any opinions are stated as such and are informed by my interpretation of actual observation.
(click on “SCIENCE OR NOT” to get to next part of this article)
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1. It has been brought to my attention that in an on-line debate, that someone doubted whether the website editor had actually attended Dr Janov’s Center or the training. Here is some evidence, a sample selection of semester receipts from 2000 to 2003. Much more evidence exists, most of which is available for review by independent researchers.
