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Psychobabble (1977)
a book by RD Rosen
From the chapter: Primal Therapy: The Absence of Significant Blocking Pain
“…Primal Therapy consisted of feelings, wailing, choking, spewing, grasping, and screaming. The word Pain was even capitalized in the text, as if it belonged exclusively to Dr Janov, Ph.D.” p137
“It is my belief,” Janov wrote in the first issue of The Journal of Primal Therapy in the fall of 1973, “based on research thus far, that Primal Man is indeed a new kind of human being with a different kind of brain functioning and a new physiology…Clearly it is my belief that Primal Therapy is the cure for mental illness; in the coming months and years we hope to inform you about that cure and what it means for mankind” It was that kind of talk that recalled nothing so much as L. Ron Hubbard’s claims for Scientology, whose successful graduates, called “clears,” would form a totally neurosis-free superior race.” p144
“Post-Primal man, Janov enthused, “becomes highly individualistic; he is no longer clubby and involved in social organizations… the post-Primal person is a new kind of human being. For example, he is never moody.” p148
“Primal Therapists, Janov claims, “are probably the most highly paid therapists in the country, and for good reason. They have trained long and hard…They are the most skilled therapists in the world.” Yet Janov’s own daughter was administering therapy while still in her teens and, in at least one case, a severely disturbed female was put in the care of a woman in her twenties who had only recently been a patient her herself! Other therapists in 1972 included a Hollywood actor, a grocery store owner, a New York stage actress-all with no psychological training prior to becoming Primal patients.” p158
“ ‘One of the things that got me,’ Ilene Elder adds, ‘was that everyone had to admit publicly in group that forever thereafter they are homosexuals. Now that may be part if us-the whole underlying idea of innate bisexuality may be true-but it belittles the Pain to make it into vaudeville.’ “p159
—
” Ron was once hugging a female patient in the Institute when Janov walked by and announced: ‘Carver, you’re acting out.’ Ron, already by this time accustomed to Janov’s behavior, simply ignored the comment. Janov warned: ‘I’m deadly serious’
‘Well,’ Ron replied. ‘You can be deadly serious,’ throwing back at Janov the kind of Primal remark therapists often use to encourage ‘feelings’ in patients. Janov became angry. The woman Ronnie was hugging took off. Janov kept on. ‘Look,’ Ron finally said, ‘I’ve had a Primal today and I’m here because I just want to be with other people.’
‘Just because you’ve had your Primal for today,’ Janov retorted, ‘doesn’t mean you can keep on acting out tonight.’
Ron felt the whole thing was getting out of hand and fell silent, but Janov wanted the last word.
‘Whenever we get into an argument,’ he said, ‘I’m always right and you’re always wrong.’
Another patient once found himself in the Institute elevator with Janov. ‘You seem tense,’ the patient said to him.
‘No!’ Janov replied. ‘You’re the one who’s unreal.’ ” p160, 161
—
Lauren’s case:
“About two months into the therapy, Lauren began to experience baby talk again, screaming words like “Goddy” and “Daddy.” Nancy [her primal therapist at Janov's Institute, 1972] intervened to suggest that Lauren’s father might have raped her. Lauren insisted that he had only molested her. Nancy said she was only trying to help her feel the feeling….” p177
[Lauren subsequently primalled about being raped, as the therapist had suggested, and continued to primal about a whole host of other abuse. much later it is suggested that a lot of it could have been false]
“…Lauren continued to need vast amounts of personal attention beyond the three-week intensive therapy.”p179
“[phoning somebody] Lauren [was] saying that she couldn’t Primal any more and had developed severe symptoms: she couldn’t urinate, defecate, or sleep. She was taking fifteen chloral hydrate capsules at a time. She needed more help right away. The Institute, instead of giving her more sessions, was giving her more pills.” p179
“One day, ‘in paranoia,’ Lauren saw a shadow on the pavement on her way to the bank and she panicked… She finally flew to New York where she discovered she now needed four hours of Primaling a day.” p180
“In the fall of 1973, Ron [Nancy's primal partner] began enlisting the aid of friends to help Lauren… to “sit” for her [as primal buddies] “p182
“devoted to Primal Therapy even if they had given up on the Primal Institute, they struggled to gain for Lauren some relief from her sense of unreality, and more that just relief, they convinced themselves that by allowing Lauren’s Primal Pain to work itself out – she would once again recapture her health.”p183
“Over a nine month period in 1973, she went from needing four and five hours of primaling a day to seven and eight and then, miraculously, down to two and three” p 184
“For the next year and a half, he [Ron] Primaled her eight hours a day”p185
“She refused medical treatment and became catatonic when Ron insisted they see a doctor. Ron was in the end sympathetic to her stand. She was afraid of completely losing touch with herself in a hospital; with Ron, at least they could see what was going on, though they appeared now to be helpless to stop it. Besides, what would a doctor ever be able to make of her Primaling? They stayed where they were and decided to stick it out.” p186
“Ron was grasping for straws. Yet, he thought, if she can just get through this, no matter how bad things are now, she’ll come out the other end. He had the distinct sense that a modern, medical miracle [primal therapy] was in the making and made plans to write about it. Meanwhile, Lauren spent eight hours a day in the sound proofed room. The carpet was covered with half-empty Kleenex boxes.”p186
“…Then Bob returned to LA and Lauren suddenly sensed that her brother was a murderer.”p186
“..she had vivid Primal memories of Bob killing people…. Ron concluded that memories of her brother as a murderer unlocked the true source of her illness. And he believed this despite the fact that he knew Bob well …and they had shared a bedroom in LA and become friends.”p187
“Lauren dictated to Ron a thirty-eight-page typed history of her brother’s nefarious past…It was a terrifying document…Beginning in New Jersey…Lauren was four, Bob was six and a half” p187 [the book goes on to describe incredible unbelievable memories of abuse and murder which turned out to be almost certainly false]
“Lauren was lying in the bathtub, drugged… the water was up around her eyes” (p.192) []
[She had apparently committed suicide since there were hints she might beforehand. In the full story there are hints that a lot of the abuse Lauren relived after the therapist suggested the rape were false memories.]
RD Rosen’s Psychobabble, (1977). ISBN 0-689-10775-7.
For a secondary source and evidence that Rosen was not inventing this material, see the August 2008 account in “YOUR STORIES 1.”
[Despite New Age Blues and Psychobabble being written in the late 1970s, these books are still relevant today. The primal books written by Janov in the 1970s are still significant recruiting and retention tools in primal therapy, today in 2007, especially The Primal Scream. These excerpts above challenge a lot of the claims made by Janov in those books, and it is still important information for potential and current patients right now.]
