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Crazy Therapies (1996)
Margaret Thaler Singer PhD. (UC Berkeley) and Janja Lalich PhD. (CSU Chico)
Excerpts:
“Arthur Janov…claims to have “discovered” primal therapy. It is another one of those therapies based on therapist observations of the conduct of one patient. At least Janov reports confirming the idea on a second patient. He then taught, and continues to teach, the method to countless others, professing that this is the best and only useful therapy to cure mental illness” p. 120
“Janov said that he came to regard the primal scream ‘as the product of central and universal pains which reside in all neurotics…Primal Therapy is aimed at eradicating these pains. It is revolutionary because it involves overthrowing the neurotic system by forceful upheaval. Nothing short of that will eliminate neurosis, in my opinion.’ “p. 120-121
“From these experiences [of cases Danny and Gary], Janov concluded that all neurotics have ‘Primal Pain.’ Janov liked to capitalize certain words (as one critic remarked, ‘to underscore the monumentality of his concepts’)” p.121
“Two years after writing his first book, Janov’s certitude about having found the one cure-all was established-at least in his mind. In the first lines of his second book, Janov wrote: “Primal Therapy purports to cure mental illness (psychophysical illness, to be exact). Moreover, it claims to be the only cure. By implication, this renders all other psychological theories obsolete and invalid. It means that there can be only one valid approach to treating neurosis and psychoses.” A few pages later he writes: “Primal Therapy methods are replicable in the hands of any competent Primal Therapist who can produce Primals and cures consistently.” Yet Janov’s World Wide Web home page warns, “It must be emphasized that this therapy is dangerous in untrained hands.” ” (p.121-122)
“Catharsis theory in all its forms has been challenged repeatedly over the years. Evidence that expressing angry, violent behavior does not drain it away but increases the chances of its recurrence has been presented in the scientific psychology literature for years.[Leonard Berkowitz's, of the University of Wisconsin, work is then discussed]
Such research is apparently not read or accepted by the many therapists who continue to ply their ventilation trade.
In 1956 Seymour Feshbach demonstrated that the Freudian ventilation notion was incorrect [with a cleverly designed studies on boys]…”p128
“Ventilation by yelling and other acts of aggression does not help either children or adults to become less angry or aggressive. Couples urged to yell at one another feel more angry after practice, not less. Researchers in family violence and violence in general have been reporting for years that all the urging to vent pent-up anger only teaches people, both children and adults, to act out irrationally, to simply rehearse and demonstrate angry, aggressive acts.” p. 129
“The best remedies for “handling” anger generated by frustration or irritation with another person appear to be those that help people of any age better understand why another person acted as he or she did. Encouraging mild, placid, and rational people to “let go” and ventilate their rage only makes them feel worse if they do.” p.129
“When therapists urge patients to express and release their anger…they are relying on that outdated hydraulic model… Those old fashioned ideas that draining off the pressure will eradicate the anger, clear the mind, and allow the person to move on as a “new” being never were scientifically sound, nor are they today.” p.129
“From a social influence vantage point, the let-it-all-out and attack therapies can have a major impact. Usually, clients will have paid a fair amount of money for a therapy that might sound odd or bizarre to their realistic friends. Therefore, clients will feel a need to defend their actions and commitments, having made an open affiliation with the therapeutic practice and therapist. During the course of the therapy, clients regress, become dependent, have their self-esteem and sense of self attacked and diminished, and to some degree lose touch with their previous everyday reality orientation. Nothing is the way it used to be.” p. 130
“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” p130
“It is definitely harder to recognize problems with a particular decision when a person has spent money, told family and friends about it, and invested the extraordinary amount of energy called for by these therapies. Participants may be less prone to admit to the therapist, to others, or to themselves that they still have problems or have not become totally fixed as promised by the therapist who is saying, ‘See, something dramatic is happening’.” p130
“Caught in the web of their own commitment to the therapy and the influential urgings of the therapist, once they begin to participate, people find it difficult to get away from these crazy confrontation therapies. Only later do some clients realize that they’ve been had and, in certain cases, badly abused.” (p. 131)
“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.” (p. 131)
“Crazy” Therapies, Singer and Lalich, (1996). ISBN 0-7879-0278-0
Margaret Singer Ph.D. at the time of writing was a clinical psychologist at UC Berkeley. Janja Lalich Ph.D. is a specialist in cults and psychological manipulation and abuse, and a lecturer of sociology at California State University Chico.
