Debunking Primal Therapy

Where Primal Therapy Is Not A Science

Critical_Websites/Articles

Critical Articles, Websites and Podcast of Primal Therapy

Up Against the Wall: Primal Therapy and ‘the Sixties’
European Journal of American Studies
This is an interesting article that is of very high quality. Here is a sample quotation from the Introduction: 
“in some of its aspects the therapy was an amalgam of the ideologies of the 1960s youth movement translated into therapeutic terms. Primal Therapy also incorporated a critique of the counterculture that inspired it, one dedicated to making it more able to fulfil its revolutionary goals.”
Paul Williams and Brian Edgar, “Up Against the Wall: Primal Therapy and ‘the Sixties’,” European Journal of American Studies, Special Issue on May 68, [Online], put online Sep. 08, 2008. URL : http://ejas.revues.org/document3022.html . Consulted on Sep. 12, 2008.
 
  

 

Pillsworld Blog

This site contains 6 articles related to primal therapy http://pillsworld.blogspot.com/ - just click on the “Primal Therapy” category once you enter the site.  The articles are well done, concise, to-the-point and presents evidence in a way so as to let the reader decide.  The site contains articles such as “Alice MIller on Birth Trauma,” “John Lennon and Primal Therapy,” “Carol Mithers, Primal Therapy and Alice Miller,” ”Professor Steven Rose and Primal Therapy,” and more.

The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice

 

This is a website and a journal that deals with objective investigations of controversial and unorthodox claims in clinical psychology, psychiatry, and social work. The site and journal is affiliated with the Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health (CSMMH).  The website It states that:

 

“A wide variety of unvalidated and sometimes harmful psychotherapeutic methods include…Primal Scream therapy.”

http://www.srmhp.org/0101/raison-detre.html

 

 

Healthline.com

 

On Healthline.com’s website article on “Psychotherapy,” Joan Schonbeck (author of Gale’sEncyclopedia of Alternative Medicine) writes:

 

      “Primal therapy, developed by Arthur Janov in the 1960s, is based upon the assumption that people must relive early life experiences with all the acuity of feeling that was somehow suppressed at the time in order to free themselves of compulsive or neurotic behavior. Primal therapy was a cathartic approach that many therapists now believe can impede progress because a person can become addicted to the release (even “high”) associated with the catharsis and seek to keep repeating it for the momentary satisfaction.”

 

Quotation from the website:

http://www.healthline.com/galecontent/psychotherapy

 

Sciencetics.com

 

Check out the humorous yet educational podcast(s) from Sciencetics.com, a website that sets out to debunk pseudoscience with a mix of education, valid points and humorously unfounded personal attacks that aim to match those of the pseudoscientists or cultists (for example they accuse primal therapists of being Segway riders, which is probably one of the worse insults you could give them).

 

Note that the podcast host occasionally uses a little profanity for humorous purposes, so if you do not like that sort of humor, this may not be for you.

 

Click on: http://sciencetics.com/archive.html then scroll down to episode 005, either left-click the “DOWNLOAD” link to play it now, or right-click and go to “Save Target As” to save the audio file to your computer.  You may want to also check out episode 001 to put episode 005 in context.  The podcast is now available at Itunes.

 

 

DISCOVER MAGAZINE, MAY 2007,

“WHATEVER HAPPENED TO Primal Therapy?”

written by Steve Ornes, a science writer.

 

This is an excerpt from a short half page article:

 

“…Janov’s approach never became widespread and came under fire from professional therapists and investigators…

Timothy Moore, chairman of the department of psychology at York University’s Glendon College in Toronto, points out that Janov’s ascertains of scientific linkage are based on uncontrolled case histories and personal observations, and as such his work has not been scientifically validated. ‘In terms of value of untested psychotherapy, some of it is useless because it is silly,’ he says, ‘but some of it is dangerous because the intervention can get out of hand.’   ”      Steve Ornes, Discover, May 2007

 

link: http://discovermagazine.com/2007/may/whatever-happened-to-primal-therapy

 

                        Psychoanalytic Psychology(2003)., 20:717-726

 

The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice: Implications for Psychology and Psychoanalysis

 

Review by: Robert F. Bornstein, Ph.D.

 

EXCERPT FROM ABSTRACT:

“Clinical researchers estimate that there are over 400 different types of therapy in use today, with more appearing every year (Corsini, 2000). Evidence supporting the efficacy of these therapeutic approaches varies considerably, with some forms of treatment (e.g., systematic desensitization for phobias) receiving strong empirical support (Barlow, 2002), others (e.g., antidepressant management of depression) receiving mixed support (Greenberg, Bornstein, Greenberg, & Fisher, 1992), and still others (e.g., primal scream therapy) receiving no support at all.”

http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=ppsy.020.0717a

      “Addiction Counseling Strategies That Lack Research Support”:

 

“A string of therapies often used by addiction counselors promotes, encourages, and even demands that clients ventilate their feelings in order to correct problems …Such strategies run the gambit from Primal Therapy that promotes literally screaming out pain and neurosis…The research does not support these or similar strategies.” Michael J. Taleff, PhD

 

also published in Counselor, The Magazine for Addiction Professionals, October 2004, v.5, n.5, pp. 46-47.

http://www.counselormagazine.com/content/view/338/1/

 

 

 

 

                                 ”Potentially Harmful Treatments”

 

                                        “Primal Therapy” (2006)

 

                                    by Byrd, Ensor, Mattachione

 

                              From the University of Tusla’s website

 

 

Excerpt from this article:

 

“There are very few peer reviewed articles on primal therapy outside of this journal.  There has been one peer reviewed published outcome study which due to its multiple flaws within its design, no valid conclusions could be made.  Furthermore, for one client within this outcome study, primal therapy triggered psychosis.  Overall, primal therapy is not based on scientific theory or empirical support and requires the client to spend a lot of money and a long time away from home.”

 

 

http://www.orgs.utulsa.edu/trapt/potentially_harmful_treatments.htm

 

Link to the Word Format article “Primal Therapy” (2006) by Byrd, Ensor, Mattachione :  http://www.orgs.utulsa.edu/trapt/primal therapy.doc

 

 

                               “THERAPEUTIC & OTHER HOAXES”:

 

 

 

http://www.religioustolerance.org/psy_hoax2.htm 

 

Excerpts from the webpage:

 

 

 

“Primal Scream therapy: This was invented and promoted by Dr. Arthur Janov, a psychologist in Los Angeles. His first book, published in 1970, The Primal Scream became a best-seller. (1) He has since written “The New Primal Scream.” (2) The rationale behind this therapy is that all of a persons “neuroses, psychoses and psychosomatic ills derive from repressed memories of childhood traumas, particularly the trauma of being born.”  In therapy, the patient is age-regressed back into childhood. Repressed memories seem to emerge, leading eventually to memories of the person’s birth. “When patients recover their lost memories of early trauma, especially the trauma of birth, they often writhe on the floor, sobbing and screaming with rage at whatever was done to them or at the violence of their birth.” (3) With these memories restored, the patient’s emotional problems are believed to disappear; their aging processes slows, and their resistance to disease increases. In opposition to Primal Therapy is the near-consensus among memory researchers that infants cannot retain memories of events in their life. A person’s earliest memories typically are from 42 months of age or later; retained memories prior to 24 months are unheard of. ”

 

Written on: 1997-SEP-05 Latest update: 2006-MAY-12. Author: B.A. Robinson

 

 

(1) Dr. Arthur Janov, “The Primal Scream,” Delta Book Co., (1970).

(2) Arthur Janov, “The New Primal Scream,” Trafalgar Square, (2000).

(3) Martin Gardner, “Primal Scream: A persistent New-Age therapy,” Skeptical Inquirer, 2001-MAY/JUN

 

 

 

 

 

                                     “Skepticism and Psychotherapy”

 

 

 

 

[in the table on page 25, “primal screaming” is listed as untested and unorthodox.  In the therapist table on the same page, the therapist who is unscientific but caring is named as “the quack”]

 

Quack Psychotherapy

 

… strange and disturbing noises coming from [what] proved to be “primal scream” therapy…Arthur Janov is the name associated with so-called primal therapy.  According to Janov the patient frees himself of primal pain by learning the proper way to scream.” (p.26)

 

 

 

“Why does non-evidence based psychotherapy prevail?..money, prestige and laziness… 

…If you can make loads of money and have loads of prestige with so little effort, then why worry about the harm you might be doing?  Even the patients you harm will be grateful, although victims’ families and friends may not.” (p. 29)

 

The Skeptic, Winter 2003 (p.25-26) Professor Jill Gordon, Associate Dean for Medical Education at the University of Sydney, and practicing psychotherapist.

 

http://www.skeptics.com.au/journal/2003/2_psych.pdf

 

 

                    “Former psychologist says profession is self-serving,”

 

“On the Couch” by Carol Milstone, PhD

 

National Post 06/25/2001

 

Excerpt from http://tanadineen.com/media/NatPostMilstone.html :

 

“Before 1993, when [Tana Dineen] abandoned the psychology profession in protest, Dineen assumed that psychologists recognized “an obligation to scrutinize their ideas, to question assumptions, and to raise questions about socially sanctioned beliefs.”

Instead Dineen, author of the book Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry Is Doing to People, found that most therapists are just ’swept along by their own opinions and their own beliefs.’

When she was practicing psychology in the 1970s, it was fads like primal scream therapy and Gestalt therapy, while today it’s regression therapy (which she believes can cause false memories), thought field therapy (TFT), eye movement and desensitization reprocessing therapy (EMDR) and alien abduction therapy.

‘This is the kind of junk that the colleges of licensed psychologists will do nothing about,’ laments Dineen. ‘These therapists are dangerous people, and people continue to get sucked into their beliefs.’

Also disturbing, says Dineen, is the profession’s habit of convincing people whose lives are normal that somehow their lives should be more fulfilled and that psychologists can help.”  National Post article 6/25/2001 by Carol Milstone Ph.D.

 

http://tanadineen.com/media/NatPostMilstone.html

 

 

 

 

                                                           Conocer

 

Conocer science periodical, Number 36, January 1986, pp. 93-95

 

 (Conocer was a scientific periodical published in Spain, it was a respected popular science magazine roughly equivalent to Discover Magazine. The director of Conocer at that time was Manuel Toharia, a respected Spanish scientist and scientific investigator, and a very active fighter against Pseudoscience.),

Selected excerpts of original text in Spanish:

 ”Hasta el pasado mes de agosto, los transeúntes que prestasen un oído indiscreto a los rumores procedentes de un tranquilo hotelito particular de la avenida parisiense del Maréchal Foch, podían escuchar con cierta frecuencia sollozos y gritos de dolor; a veces incluso auténticos alaridos. Sin embargo, dentro de la casa no se torturaba a nadie, al menos en el sentido usual del término, contra su voluntad. A pesar de encontrarse en el mismo lugar, aquello nada tenía que ver con el antro que la Gestapo ocupó hace más de cuarenta años…Y el edificio era la sede del Instituto Primal Europeo (IPE), fundado y dirigido por el psicoterapeuta norteamericano Arthur Janov…Aunque se da el caso, actualmente, de que la sede central de París, sin aviso previo, acaba de cerrar definitivamente. Al parecer, por agotamiento físico y psíquico de su fundador…Luego Janov abrió otro centro en Nueva York. Pero su rentabilidad, sin embargo, no correspondía a sus deseos. En 1982, en parte por motivos económicos y en parte por presiones de su segunda mujer, de nacionalidad francesa, Janov inaugura el Instituto Primal Europeo, cuyas puertas se han cerrado hace pocos meses en París, como ya hemos visto. Los pacientes, muchos de ellos con el tratamiento a medias, recibieron una carta del maestro en la que, entre otras cosas, expresaba que “ya no puedo vivir más en medio del dolor y la miseria; después de treinta y cinco años viendo pacientes, ya es hora de que viva mi propia vida”. Quizás, además del cansancio, influyera la competencia, cada vez más numerosa y a precios mucho más asequibles que los de la terapia primal…” Article by M. Rouzé.

 

Conocer, Number 36, January 1986, pp 93-95

 

 English Translation of the above:

 

“Until last August, passers-by who were indiscreetly listening to sounds emanating from a quiet semi-detached house on the Avenue Marshal Foch in Paris, could frequently hear sobs, shouts of pain, and sometimes even real screams. Nevertheless, inside the house nobody was being tortured, at least not in the usual sense of the term, that is, unwillingly. In spite of being in the same place, the activities had nothing to do with the cellar having been used by the Gestapo more than 40 years earlier. []… The building was the headquarters of the European Primal Institute (IPE), founded and directed by the North American psychotherapist Arthur Janov. But now the headquarters in Paris have been closed without prior notification. This was apparently due to the physical and mental exhaustion of the founder … Janov opened another center in New York. But its profitability was not up to expectations. In 1982, partly for economic motives and partly as a result of pressure from his second wife, of French nationality, Janov opened the IPE in Paris, which has been closed for few months now, as we have seen. The patients, many of them only halfway with their treatment, received a letter from the therapist that, amongst other things, stated ” I cannot live any more in the midst of pain and the misery; after thirty five years seeing patients, it is time for me to live my own life”. Probably, besides this weariness, the decision was influenced by competition, with treatments becoming increasingly numerous, at prices more affordable than Primal therapy.”

Article by M. Rouzé.

 

Conocer, Number 36, January 1986, pp 93-95

 

            [Many thanks to the investigator who uncovered this article and submitted it to the website. 

            A source suggested there may be more information found in the French or specifically Parisian newspapers around the date of August 1985, but they are only in print (I guess in French or Paris libraries only) and not available online.  If anyone finds anything, please email me a scan of the article(s).  Similarly if someone does an exhaustive check and finds nothing, please let me know so I can delete this paragraph.]

 

 

 

 “DUBIOUS MENTAL HEALTH-RELATED METHODS SUMMARIZED,” 

 

Excerpts from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0AYN/is_4_24/ai_n18612958 :

 

National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) Newsletter, Jul/Aug2001, Vol. 24, Issue 4

 

“In the recent double issue of Priorities for Health magazine on “Sorting Out Junk Science” [12(4);2000 and 13(1);2001], Jack Raso, MS provided brief descriptions of “Dubious Mental Health-Related Methods” such as: …, primal therapy,…” [a list of other therapies is also given]

 

 

 

 “Cults and More Cults:”

Excerpts from the page http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-bibliography.html  :

 “Arthur Janov and his Primal Scream:

The New Primal Scream: Primal Therapy After 20 Years     Arthur Janov
Enterprise Publishing, Wilmington, DE, 1991.
ISBN: 0-942103-23-8
Dewey: 132 J34n
Back in the late ’sixties, Janov published his original Primal Scream, which featured patients saying things like, “Well, if I add up how much money I spend on cigarettes over a period of several years, it is many thousands of dollars. But if I give $5000 of it to Arthur instead, for him to teach me how to scream and quit smoking, I’ll be so much healthier, and I’ll actually save money. So that’s what I’ll do — I’ll give Dr. Janov $5000.”
      Well, Janov managed to polish his act a little in the following 20 years, but it’s still the same old garbage. Now the back cover of this book says, ‘Scientific Research World-Wide Proves Primal Therapy May Prolong Life by Reducing Stress’.
Yep, the Baby Boomers are all middle-aged now, and trying to live forever…
Notice the broken logic:
Scientific blah-blah PROVES that Janov’s garbage MAY work.
We get an absolute certainty — “proof” — followed by a vague, uncertain, maybe.
Yes, and the discovery of the coelacanth PROVES that Nessie the Loch Ness sea monster MIGHT be real too, but it’s extremely unlikely. I’m not holding my breath.
Note that the opposite logic is equally valid:
Scientific blah-blah PROVES that Janov’s garbage MAY NOT work.”

http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-bibliography.html

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

James Randi Educational Foundation

website forum:

 

This is a discussion on whether primal therapy is pseudoscience (woo) or science.

Excerpts from this website forum http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=79462 :

 

“I’m a psychology professor who wrote a skeptical reference book (Popular Psychology: An Encyclopedia, from Greenwood Press, if anyone cares), and in that process I did some digging into just how bizarre these folks are. Here’s a very brief excerpt from my entry on Janov; note the remarkable similarities to Dianetics/Scientology:

 

 

‘Given the questionable, indeed bizarre, theoretical underpinning of primal therapy, the absence of controlled scientific evidence is unsurprising. Consider, for example, the claim that trauma associated with conception can be a major source of Pain in adulthood. Primal therapists teach that if a child is conceived through rape, the egg and sperm are imprinted with specific feelings about the incident and pass this memory along to all cells of the child’s body. This will of course cause lifelong pain and anxiety, until the patient learns (with the help of primal therapy, of course) to release those feelings. The idea that individual cells, especially gametes, actually possess either feelings or memories, and are furthermore able to pass those feelings along to all subsequent cells they produce, thus leading to psychological trauma felt by the organism as a whole, is sufficiently ludicrous, on many levels, to be undeserving of any attempt at systematic criticism other than to say that it is completely incompatible with what is known about memory and feelings, to say nothing of cellular biology.
Janov has more recently attempted (in his latest book, The Biology of Love ) to connect his ideas to more conventional knowledge in neuroscience, in the hope of gaining greater scientific legitimacy. In agreeing with neurochemists that becoming emotionally upset and screaming can cause a release of endorphins, which of course will produce a feeling of well-being, he actually harms his case more than he helps it. This phenomenon is also well-known among athletes, after all, and there is no reason to believe that the “runner’s high” is associated with the release of repressed trauma. The strenuous activity provides a complete explanation of the phenomenon.
The Primal Scream was published more than thirty years ago, and primal therapy is essentially unaltered from its earliest state—while undeniably an inventive and intriguing approach to psychotherapy, it lacks the underpinning of scientific validation which potential clients ought to be able to expect at this point in our history. ‘ “

 

 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=79462

 

 

National Council Against Health Fraud

(NCAHF) News, July/Aug 2001

Volume 24, Issue #4

 Excerpts from http://www.ncahf.org/nl/2001/7-8.html :

“PSEUDOSCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGICAL THERAPIES SCRUTINIZED

 A symposium in the Spring 2001 issue of The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine and Aberrant Medical Practices [SRAM] on ‘Pseudoscience and Psychotherapy’ begins with brain behavior scientist Barry Beyerstein’s article ‘Fringe Psychotherapies: The Public at Risk.’ Dr. Beyerstein notes three ways that fringe therapists endanger patients: (1) through manipulation and fraud; (2) by failing to recognize early signs of serious psychopathologies; and (3) by encouraging clients’ delusions. He says practitioners of psychotherapy have drifted from the scientific-practitioner model. Contributing factors include: … the failure of professional associations to take action against peddlers of discredited services.

Beyerstein identifies several cherished assumptions of clinicians that are actually psychotherapeutic fictions. They include: … (2) ‘ “clinical judgment” is a reliable basis for deriving predictions about clients’ behavior;’ (3) ‘most psychological problems stem from trauma or maltreatment early in life’; ..

He notes problems with various approaches to psychological therapy including: … (7) therapies that encourage recall of thoughts while in utero, during birth, or in early childhood- e.g. … Primal Scream Therapy …”

 

and from the same webpage:

 

“Psycotherapy Websites Critiqued

A study of the quality of information on psychotherapy at Web sites that consumers would likely find in a search for information on psychotherapy revealed that ‘the consumer of health information is exposed to a variety of unsubstantiated claims.’ …Shortcomings identified in these sites included out-of-date information, inadequate references of sources, insufficient information about methodologies of studies described, carelessness, hyperbole, intimidating statements, and self-serving statements. [Quinn, B. Assessing the quality of psychotherapy self-evaluation information on the web. Proceedings of the 22nd National Online Meeting, 2001.]“

http://www.ncahf.org/nl/2001/7-8.html

 

 

 The Scientology Sect …(Heinemann 1979)

 

8. Health and Immortality

“This expectation is used by all of the type of psychological healer who offers an allegedly patent recipe. For instance, there is Janov, who asserts that all defects are a result of pre-natal or infant ‘primary experiences’ which give rise to ‘primal pain,’ which can be removed by ‘primal scream therapy.’

In this context, the term ‘technology’ is often used: Janov’s technology to produce the ‘primal scream’ is supposed to be so simple that a German author refrained from describing it on a radio show because of the potential for misuse. ‘Technology’ and ’science’ are also used by Hubbard to cast his spell.(By the way, Janov - like Hubbard - has the opinion that the application of his theory can lead to a world without war or crime.) ” The Scientology Sect (p.62), by Heineman (1979).

Website link: www.lermanet.com/cisar/germany/books/trn1046.htm

 

“Get Therapy and Work on It”:

 

Managing Dissent in an Intentional Community

 

Daphne Holden, Florida State University

Doug Schrock

 

[This is an article you can download your self in PDF format.  It is about a kind of psychotherapy group called an Intentional Community which was influenced by primal therapy.   The founder's, such as Sam, going through primal therapy influenced the techniques used in the group.  It is not directly about primal therapy, but it is so fascinating and instructive.]

excerpts from the article http://www.sociology.fsu.edu/people/schrock/schrock_get_therapy.pdf:

 

“…the founders managed such dissent by

(1) reframing community problems as psychological issues,

(2) discrediting critics as psychologically troubled, and

(3) emotionally attacking recalcitrant newcomers.”   (p. 175)

 

“Marny, Sam, Chris, and Sara were involved in a variation of liberation psychotherapy called ‘primal therapy.’ For primal therapists, it is necessary to re-experience the pain repressed from your past to release the ‘true self.’ According to the Primal Center (2006), group work and retreats are important so that participants can ‘trigger each others’ feelings,’ experience feelings in a safe environment, and see how others work through emotional pain. Liberating one’s self requires unrestrained expression of emotions, especially anger and grief, and ‘kicking, screaming, [and] pounding on the walls for hours are essential’ (Janov 1991:330).”   (p. 178)

 

“Consistent with primal therapy…, group members sought to free their true selves through processing painful childhood memories, which sometimes involved screaming in anger or wailing with grief. They believed such expressions were deeply authentic and that they testified to the group’s emotional and relational health.”   (p. 179)

 

“Founders’ use of a discourse of liberation psychotherapy allowed them to attack each other and, less frequently, newcomers. In contrast to discrediting, where founders invoked their therapeutic authority to help by saying or implying that dissenting newcomers needed therapy, when they attacked they yelled at others and linked their anger to their own unresolved childhood issues. According to primal therapy and Peck’s (1987) version of liberation psychotherapy, such “out of control” expressions were particularly authentic because they signified freedom from conventional proprieties. Founders’ attacks against each other made newcomers uncomfortable and worried that they could also be attacked. Although interviews revealed that founders attacked newcomers prior to fieldwork, the first author observed only two instances in which founders attacked dissenting newcomers, both at retreats.” (p. 188)

 

“Founders used liberation psychotherapy to cast themselves as therapeutically enlightened and dropouts as repressed. For example, Sam said he could handle the intensity of the community “only because I did primal therapy.” He explained that primal therapy enabled him to realize that his fear of others’ anger was a manifestation of fearing “my own rage against my Mom [for] sexual abuse and physical abuse when I was a baby.” For Sam, it was understandable that others were intimidated by founders’ expressions of their “deepest feelings toward one another” because, unlike him, they were not in touch with their own feelings.” (p. 192)

 

“Michael, Gwen, and Robert—all of whom had not participated in primal therapy, unlike the other founders—indicated they were becoming increasingly critical about the other founders’ attacking. For example, Michael, a therapist who was highly respected by other founders and newcomers alike, said: ‘It has seemed like there is kind of an apology for unbridled anger, an excuse for it: that openness and directness meant you didn’t have to treat each other very well. You could be really harsh and furious and hurtful in the name of honest communication . . . and it makes people reluctant to speak their mind.’ ” (p. 194)

 “Get Therapy and Work on It,” Daphne Holden, Florida State University.

 

Weblink to adobe pdf file: http://www.sociology.fsu.edu/people/schrock/schrock_get_therapy.pdf

 

Alice Miller

 

Quotations from psychologist Alice Miller, a former advocate of primal therapy:

 

“There was too much faith in the relief caused by cathartic discharge.

…Today I also have a very critical attitude towards the intensive phase and the original primal therapy setting.”

Alice Miller - Communication To My Reader http://www.primals.org/articles/amiller.html

 

“I feel obliged to let you know directly that I do not want to be identified with any kind of regressive therapy.”

Alice Miller http://www.naturalchild.com/alice_miller/note.html

 

Excerpt from the United Kingdom newspaper The Guardian:

“Interestingly, Miller herself underwent and endorsed “primal therapy”, in which patients were encouraged to regress to a childlike state in order to unlock their earliest experiences. She later distanced herself from its practitioners” The Guardian, Wednesday April 20, 2005
http://society.guardian.co.uk/children/story/0,1074,1463986,00.html

 

 

“Primal Therapy: What it is and What it is Not,”
Real Beaulieu

 

“Also, inherent to the nature of Primal therapy, there is the danger that the primal patient, having been promised a cure, puts too much hope and reliance on “feelings” alone. I must emphasize that this remark applies especially to the early days of Primal Therapy. In those days, the process was considered as potentially dangerous, even by Janov himself.”

“Primal Therapy: What it is and what it is not,” by Réal Beaulieu (1988) (a former therapist at Dr Janov’s Center)

 

Web link: http://www.real-personal-growth.com/res_fixing/authors/real_beaulieu.htm

Wikipedia Criticism

 

Here is the criticisms preserved that people have put on wiki’s primal therapy page, which could possibly be lost to vandalism in the future.

Some of the criticisms below are new and haven’t been put elsewhere on this debunking site. Following this criticism section is the peer reviewed wiki section, followed by the actual editable text of the criticism section:

 

Criticism

 Martin Gardner wrote a critical article called “Primal Therapy: A Persistent New Age Therapy.” in the Skeptical Enquirer, May 1 2001. In the article Gardner discusses some of what he sees as the problems with primal therapy, and also details a protest over the publication of the book The Biology of Love (Janov, 2000).

 

  • Alice Miller, a well-known psychologist and writer on child abuse, initially endorsed Primal Therapy, but later retracted her endorsement in a Communication to her readers, in which she criticized Primal Therapy as potentially dangerous and lacking in empirical support.

 

  • In the section called “Primal Therapy,” from the Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, 2nd ed. Gale Group, 2001, Timothy Moore challenges and criticizes primal therapy in a number of ways, including:  
“A recent survey of the opinions of 300 clinicians and researchers regarding psychotherapeutic techniques revealed that primal therapy was the technique whose soundness was most often questioned.” link to article

 

  • In the book Psychobabble (1977, ISBN 0-689-10775-7) R.D. Rosen comments on Janov’s writing:
“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.” (Page 144)

 

  • In the book Popular Psychology - An Encyclopedia (2005)(ISBN 0-313-32457-3) psychology professor Luis A. Cordon states that:
“…while undeniably an inventive and intriguing approach to psychotherapy, it lacks the underpinning of scientific validation which potential clients ought to be able to expect at this point in our history.” (Page 133)

 

“Two years after writing his first book, Janov’s certitude about having 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 psychologic theories obsolete and invalid. It means that there can be only one valid approach to treating neuroses and psychosis’.” (Pages 121 and 122)

 

  • Primal therapy is cited in the book The Death of Psychotherapy: From Freud to Alien Abductions. (2000) Donald A. Eisner ISBN 0275964132. In that book Eisner writes:
“Since there is no relevant research, Primal Therapy could simply be chalked up as a placebo and the excessive demand characteristics of the extreme rituals and procedures as well as group pressures.” (Pages 51-52)

 

“Overall, primal therapy is not based on scientific theory or empirical support and requires the client to spend a lot of money and a long time away from home.”

 

  • Psychiatrist Dr Anthony Clare commented on primal therapy in his book Let’s Talk About Me (1981), (BBC. ISBN 0 563 17887 6):
“It does appear that the need to cling to a simple, unqualified, dogmatic theory outweighs whatever critical awareness that Janov’s readers possess.” (Page 121)

 

  • In the book New Age Blues (1979, ISBN 0-525-47532-X) Michael Rossman comments on the 3 week intensive phase of primal therapy:
“The elements are all pretty traditional: isolation, deprivation, anticipation, and suggestion. You can teach people a lot of different things that way. Brainwashing and the vision-quest both use it.” (Page 28)
  • In a Discover magazine article, May 2007, science writer Steve Ornes wrote:
“Timothy Moore, chairman of the department of psychology at York University’s Glendon College in Toronto, points out that Janov’s ascertains of scientific linkage are based on uncontrolled case histories and personal observations, and as such his work has not been scientifically validated.” [article]
  • Sciencetics.com has produced a podcast(number 005) that is critical of primal therapy. This podcast is now available on Itunes.

 

  • The website www.religioustolerance.org listed primal therapy in it’s article “Therapeutic and Other Hoaxes” (Sept 1997, updated May 2006) in which B.A. Robinson writes:
“In opposition to primal therapy is the near-consensus among memory researchers that infants cannot retain memories of events in their life. A person’s earliest memories typically are from 42 months of age or later; retained memories prior to 24 months are unheard of.”
  • In the winter 2003 edition of the journal The Skeptic professor Jill Gordon, an Associate Dean for Medical Education at the University of Sydney, and a practicing psychotherapist, wrote an article called “Skepticism and Psychotherapy” in which she discusses primal therapy under the subheading “Quack Psychotherapy.” Of all non-evidence based therapies she wrote in general:
“If you can make loads of money and have loads of prestige with so little effort, then why worry about the harm you might be doing? Even the patients you harm will be grateful, although victims’ families and friends may not.”
  • Primal Therapy is cited in the 2002 paper Fringe Psychotherapies: The Public at Risk [41]
“Rebirthing, Primal Scream Therapy, and Dianetics (Scientology) all assert that people can and should recall times in their lives when their brains and cognitive processes were too immature to lay down memories of the sort posited by these theorists” (Page 11)
  • In the science periodical Conocer (number 36, January 1986, pages 93-95), published in Spain by scientist and pseudoscience investigator Manual Toharia, M Rouze wrote a sceptical article on primal therapy.

 

  • In the journal National Post article “Former Psychologist Says Profession is Self Serving,” (June 25, 2001) Carol Milstone Ph.D. lists primal therapy as one of the psychology fads of the 1970s. Of these fads, Milstone quotes psychologist Tana Dineen (who was practicing in the 1970s) as saying:
“This is the kind of junk that the colleges of licensed psychologists will do nothing about,” laments Dineen. “These therapists are dangerous people, and people continue to get sucked into their beliefs.”

 

“The therapy did not work. Primal Therapy did not cure neurosis.”…”mostly it was a cult movement.”
  • In October 2004, the journal Counselor, The Magazine for Addiction Professionals included an article called “Addiction Counseling Strategies That Lack Research Support” in which Michael J. Taleff, Ph.D. expressed that research does not support primal therapy or ventilation therapies as a strategy for addiction counseling. He writes:
“[ventilation therapy]strategies run the gambit from Primal Therapy that promotes literally screaming out pain and neurosis…The research does not support these or similar strategies.” (v.5, n.5, Pages 46-47)
  • Although Los Angeles Times book critic Robert Kirsch wrote in his “Truth of Neurotic Behavior,” March 27th 1970 article about the book The Primal Scream:
“Dr. Janov is an impressive writer and thinker. Certainly, It is worth reading and considering,” (a quotation that was used on subsequent covers of some future editions of The Primal Scream),
he also wrote earlier in the article that:
“to question the ‘truth’ of primal therapy is therefore neurotic since Dr. Janov claims for his approach the final truth about neurotic behavior…Such hyperbole, such evangelic certainty may make us more determined to suspend judgment…The fact is that Dr. Janov asks us not to do what he does throughout the book which is to bring in past terminology, even if, by his approach, this method is to prove the efficacy of his own approach.”
  • In the journal Psychoanalytic Psychology (20:717-726, 2003) Robert F. Bornstein, Ph.D. lists primal therapy as having no empirical evidence. He writes in the abstract:
“Evidence supporting the efficacy of…therapeutic approaches varies considerably, with some forms of treatment (e.g., systematic desensitization for phobias) receiving strong empirical support (Barlow, 2002), others (e.g., antidepressant management of depression) receiving mixed support (Greenberg, Bornstein, Greenberg, & Fisher, 1992), and still others (e.g., primal scream therapy) receiving no support at all.”link to abstract

 

  • Critical review of the 1996 Janov’s book Why You Get Sick and How You Get Well: The Healing Power of Feelings

 

  • An early 1975 criticism of Janov within the Primal framework: Beyond Janov [4], by Herman Weiner, Ph.D.

 

  • The book Le Dico des sectes (which means “The Dictionary of the Sects” Edited by Annick Drogou, Toulouse, France: Editions Milan, 1998) lists Janov’s primal therapy as a sect [5].

 

  • The book The Road to Malpsychia: Humanistic Psychology and Our Discontents by J. Milton (San Francisco, CA: Encounter Books, 2002) describes primal therapy as one example of Abraham Maslow’s humanistic psychology goal of the “eupsychian dream” becoming a “malpsychian nightmare” [6].

———————————————————————–

Here is the peer review section preserved (although it should be noted there are many more critical mentions in peer reviewed not listed here (see above criticism section for example)):

Peer-reviewed journal reports

Papers by Arthur Janov in peer-reviewed journals

—————————————————————————

Here is the editable text preserved of the criticism wiki section.  Here it is in the format that anyone can easily cut and paste into the edit page at wiki: 

== Criticism ==

*[http://www.DebunkingPrimalTherapy.com Debunking Primal Therapy] is a website set up by a former primal therapist trainee, and addresses such issues as peer review, falsifiability, bias, justification and other social psychological effects behind primal therapy. In the section on [http://www.debunkingprimaltherapy.com/cohort_observations Cohort Observations] of the early 2000s the author writes about his admittedly non-experimental observations:

::”…[regarding the efficacy of primal therapy observed in cohorts,] in my judgment the picture is worse than what you would expect from placebo.”

 

*Martin Gardner wrote a critical article called [http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-74523978.html "Primal Therapy: A Persistent New Age Therapy."] in the ”Skeptical Enquirer”, May 1 2001.  In the article Gardner discusses some of what he sees as the problems with primal therapy, and also details a protest over the publication of the book ”The Biology of Love” (Janov, 2000).

 

*Alice Miller, a well-known psychologist and writer on child abuse, initially endorsed Primal Therapy, but later retracted her endorsement in a [http://www.primals.org/articles/amiller.html Communication to her readers], in which she criticized Primal Therapy as potentially dangerous and lacking in empirical support.

 

*In the section called “Primal Therapy,” from the ”Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology”, 2nd ed. Gale Group, 2001, Timothy Moore challenges and criticizes primal therapy in a number of ways, including:

::”A recent survey of the opinions of 300 clinicians and researchers regarding psychotherapeutic techniques revealed that primal therapy was the technique whose soundness was most often questioned.” [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g2699/is_0005/ai_2699000587 link to article]

 

* In the book ”Psychobabble” (1977, ISBN 0-689-10775-7) R.D. Rosen comments on Janov’s writing:

::”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.” (Page 144)

 

*In the book ”Popular Psychology - An Encyclopedia” (2005)(ISBN 0-313-32457-3) psychology professor Luis A. Cordon states that:

::”…while undeniably an inventive and intriguing approach to psychotherapy, it lacks the underpinning of scientific validation which potential clients ought to be able to expect at this point in our history.” (Page 133)

 

* Primal therapy is one of the therapies listed in the 1996 book ””Crazy” Therapies” (ISBN 0787902780) <ref>[http://skepdic.com/therapy.html Skepdic entry about ''"Crazy Therapies"'']</ref><ref>[http://www.srmhp.org/archives/review-crazy-therapies.html ''Review of "Crazy" Therapies''], 1997</ref> 

::”Two years after writing his first book, Janov’s certitude about having 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 psychologic theories obsolete and invalid. It means that there can be only one valid approach to treating neuroses and psychosis’.” (Pages 121 and 122)

 

*Primal therapy is cited in the book ”The Death of Psychotherapy: From Freud to Alien Abductions.” (2000)  Donald A. Eisner ISBN 0275964132. In that book Eisner writes:

:: “Since there is no relevant research, Primal Therapy could simply be chalked up as a placebo and the excessive demand characteristics of the extreme rituals and procedures as well as group pressures.” (Pages 51-52)

 

* The University of Tulsa’s website has a critical article called [http://www.orgs.utulsa.edu/trapt/primal therapy.doc "Primal Therapy"] (2006, Byrd, Ensorm and Mattachione) in its section called [http://www.orgs.utulsa.edu/trapt/potentially_harmful_treatments.htm "Potentially Harmful Treatments"]. In that article the authors write:

::”Overall, primal therapy is not based on scientific theory or empirical support and requires the client to spend a lot of money and a long time away from home.”

 

* Psychiatrist Dr Anthony Clare commented on primal therapy in his book ”Let’s Talk About Me” (1981), (BBC. ISBN 0 563 17887 6):

::”It does appear that the need to cling to a simple, unqualified, dogmatic theory outweighs whatever critical awareness that Janov’s readers possess.” (Page 121)

 

*In the book ”New Age Blues” (1979, ISBN 0-525-47532-X) Michael Rossman comments on the 3 week intensive phase of primal therapy:

::”The elements are all pretty traditional: isolation, deprivation, anticipation, and suggestion.  You can teach people a lot of different things that way.  Brainwashing and the vision-quest both use it.” (Page 28)

 

* In a [http://discovermagazine.com/2007/may/whatever-happened-to-primal-therapy Discover] magazine article, May 2007, science writer Steve Ornes wrote:

::”Timothy Moore, chairman of the department of psychology at York University’s Glendon College in Toronto, points out that Janov’s ascertains of scientific linkage are based on uncontrolled case histories and personal observations, and as such his work has not been scientifically validated.” [[http://discovermagazine.com/2007/may/whatever-happened-to-primal-therapy article]]

 

* [http://sciencetics.com/archive.html Sciencetics.com] has produced a podcast(number 005) that is critical of primal therapy.  This podcast is now available on Itunes.

 

* The website www.religioustolerance.org listed primal therapy in it’s article [http://www.religioustolerance.org/psy_hoax2.htm "Therapeutic and Other Hoaxes"] (Sept 1997, updated May 2006) in which B.A. Robinso