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Wood & Wood (2008): Excerpt from the book: Therapy 101
Chapter 9: Famously Failed Therapies
Primal Therapy
Primal therapy was popularized by psychologist Arthur Janov after a client let out a blood-curdling scream in session that supposedly shook the walls of Janov’s room. After this deafening moment, the client said that he could finally feel his emotions, while Janov, perhaps feeling lucky, went on to publish The Primal Scream in 1970, inspiring great popular interest and even greater professional skepticism.
Since then, Janov has devoted his life to practicing and teaching primal therapy at the Primal Center in Los Angeles, which claims to help people resolve deep and painful emotions. Janov claims in his books not only that primal therapy cures all mental illness, but that it is the one and only therapy that can do so.
The theory behind primal therapy is that all mental health problems come from early experiences of children not getting their needs met by their parents. This is called primal pain. According to primal therapy, you can improve your mental health only after you express your “real needs and pains.” Janov believes that feeling the pain of a difficult experience or memory as an adult takes the pain out of the memory.
Supposedly, primal therapy involves a client tapping into deeply painful feelings and expressing them during the session. This might involve crying, sobbing, screaming, calling out to “Mommy” or “Daddy,” writhing, kicking, convulsing, and other expressions of intense emotion. Primal therapy is usually conducted in a sound-proof room to allow for the screaming and crying that are its common fea· tures. At the Primal Center, a person might also expect to have his or her blood pressure, temperature, and heart rate taken before and after the session to make sure the treatment is “working.”
The client’s experience is generally described as catharsis (although Janov claims that true primal therapy is much more than just catharsis). After this primal experience, clients are said to relive painful life experiences through vivid memories, after which the client feels calmer, clearer, and happier.
Primal therapy treatment involves an incredible commitment of time, energy, and money. In the first three weeks, intensive individual therapy is scheduled for about two hours per day. After that, individual and group therapy-each at least once a week-continue for a year. However, some clients have reportedly been in primal therapy for more than ten years. Primal therapy is so time-consuming that the Primal Center’s website recommends that clients move to Los Angeles and plan to stay for about one year. The Primal Center’s website also says that clients should be able to return to work after a few weeks. And return to work you must, since the first three weeks of intensive therapy will run you about $6,000. Stories abound about clients taking extra low-paying jobs and selling their houses just to afford the high cost and frequency of primal therapy.
So why doesn’t primal therapy work? The psychological community generally agrees that catharsis-in and of itself.-is not a valid therapy. In fact, social psychologists such as Brad Bushman have shown that expressions of anger can lead to more anger, not less. Basically, just because a person feels an emotion, or reexperiences a painful event, that doesn’t mean he or she will recover or that the symptoms of the mental health problem will disappear. In fact, repeatedly experiencing intense and painful emotions and memories may make you feel worse. What’s more, primal therapy as a whole is not scientifically validated, meaning there aren’t good quality scientific studies that demonstrate it works well as a treatment for any mental health problems.
What’s the bottom line? Even though some people may have found primal therapy helpful, it’s an untested treatment that might leave you screaming for something better.
Source:
Wood, J.C., & Wood, M. (2008). Chapter 9: Famously Failed Therapies – Lobotomy, Orgone Therapy, Primal Therapy, & Rebirthing. In Therapy 101: A Brief Look at Modern Psychotherapy Techniques & How They Can Help. (pp. 159-161). Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.
