Critical Articles and Websites on Primal Therapy – 3
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“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
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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
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“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
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