Personal_Attacks_In_Therapy
Personal Attacks in Primal Therapy
This section is going to be an explanation of what goes on in primal therapy, especially regarding verbal personal attack. It is based on talking to many primal people, and hearing from them how they were treated. It is my own interpretation and opinion of that. This is combined with knowledge of social psychology in order to come to some tentative hypothesis. These impressions are included because it may help people who endured some hard times in primal therapy.
First of all, to set the scene, there is a powerful effect of Arthur Janov’s literature on the reader. It inspires people to come to primal, and in primes them to be ready to give up their defenses and to trust the therapists. It puts them in a vulnerable state of mind, believing that they should not be too defensive because it may prevent them getting the psychological and physical benefits suggested in the literature. It puts them in a state of mind in which they will accept and internalize personal attacks and criticisms especially if they come from primal people that have been in therapy longer than themselves. They are vulnerable to take the personal attacks, internalize them, and then try to become better by feeling the feelings. Even when the personal attacks are incorrect, the participant may face authoritarian echoing from others of the same criticism.
In the intensive three weeks initially the participant is protected from some of the personal attacks he or she will later encounter. He/she is only allowed to mix socially with other primal people later, so there is a period where the participant gets a lot of attention.
Later though, most seem to have to start to endure personal attacks of some sort. Very few seem to be able to avoid this, only one or two people come to mind who did not seem to endure this; those people were either of high socio economic status or in a primal approved professional job and they did not seem to complain, although I could be wrong. For the rest, primal often becomes an overwhelming mix of personal attacks that puts them under duress. Until they spend time away from primal people, they will not come to appreciate the level of duress they are under. I worry that the overwhelmingly bad feelings these personal attacks create are interpreted as being old childhood pains or birth trauma. Interpretations such as that then prevents the participant from leaving, because they feel the horrible feelings present an opportunity to finally connect to some early trauma, and make some profound psychological and physical changes. Although this process will probably change people, because I believe the personal attacks actually do the participant more harm than good, I am not sure this change is in the positive direction.
To clarify what is meant here by personal attacks, it means anything that criticizes or attacks the persons character, present reality, traits, feelings, feeling authenticity, honesty, their achievements, etc. People reported to me being told by other primal people things like:
”it’s a feeling”, “I know you lie”, “you’re full of sh–”, “due to your birth, you’ve gone through life never achieving much, always giving up”, “you’re a parasympath, don’t fight it”, “you look like the other gender” (paraphrasing), “that’s it, you’re a loser, stay with that”, “you’re a p—–”, “you whore”, “you’re a b****”, “I’m talking to a feeling”, (paraphrasing:)”you’re overweight”, “you’ve been having false feelings, abreacting, all along, for decades”, “You’re sick”, “our arguing comes out of your mental illness”, “you’re acting out”, “you don’t admit to your feelings”, “you’re being defensive”, “that’s crazy”, “you’re being paranoid”, “you little shit”, “I’m not going to struggle with you”, “YOU failed, the therapy works and you did it wrong”, “you didn’t do half of the things you needed to do”, “that crying sounded fake”, it goes on and on.
Non-primal readers may read the above list and say “oh my god.” However be aware that some primal participants become inured to such attacks, and may even think “what is wrong with those criticisms?, maybe it will help the person, maybe they should listen”. Lets be clear, IT IS ABUSE. It does nobody any good to receive such personal attacks. I realize theoretically these personal attacks may not be seen as a necessary part of primal therapy, but in practice they seem always to be. In every attempt at primal therapy, from Paris to Ireland, to London to California, from the South of France to New York, from the reports I hear from around the world and the books and articles I have read, it always seems to involve personal attacks. Usually, it seems that the severity and frequency of personal attacks is consistently high in primal therapy.
Yes, something as simple as “it’s a feeling” is often a personal attack. I know it sounds innocent, but those who have endured it understand how it really can mess with your head. It is an important point “it’s a feeling” is usually subtly abusive. I understand it may sound far fetched at first, but please at least think about it.
When new patients observe how people were personally attacked in the primal community, both directly and behind their back, they think and hope it will not happen to them. They know they are honest, and that they concentrate on only real feelings, and they are not a loser. They assume the older participants who are being attacked must really have something seriously wrong with them. However as much as they try to do everything they can to prevent themselves becoming treated like that, they soon find themselves getting caught up in receiving personal attacks and trying to dispel them. They end up feeling desperate and overwhelmed, they often do not want to personally attack others, but may get drawn into it to stop their own abuse. The time and energy this takes detracts from real life work, study and play. These participants may spend years in a overwhelmed state as a result of constantly being around people who slip in primal insults constantly. The ones who refuse to attack others out of principle may be the ones that really get hurt, if they stay that is.
It is just an awful and a hostile experience that people should avoid. People who come to think primal is a cult should get out of it and sever contact with primal believers, to stay around and complain about it will lead to an ever worsening of social rank, and psychological and uniform mistreatment and rejection. For those who come to think it is a cult, it may just damage them to stay around the fringes of primal therapy and try to warn people. It may be better for them personally to make new friends and to go to them for support. They may still feel loyal to the group even after mistreatment, and they may keep on trying to convince people the are “real” or “feeling.” But what primal complainers may have to finally accept, is that their very complaints, although valid and crucially important to prevent further abuse, are always going to be taken as a sign of mental illness. So although the complainer is correct and actually showing signs of mental health, such as critical thinking and independent evaluative thought, he/she may be called “neurotic” or some such slight, by the primal in-group.
The personal attacks experienced by almost all in primal have a strong socially coercive effects that are almost cult-like. If submitted to, the defenses let down, and turned into childhood feelings, these personal attacks I think increases loyalty and authoritarianism towards primal therapy and sometimes towards their group leader. It becomes the case that the patient desperately needs the support and approval of their primal leader, therapist, or rest of the group, and they will defend them relentlessly. They will defend and protect even those who launched the personal attack, if it was their therapist or another high ranking individual. Those who do not submit and instead become rebellious may face weirdly uniform and regimented rejection from the group, even from the closest of friends. This seems to be a choice all have to make, not just some, or one or two. The truth is most people do both, they submit initially for a length of time, and when they finally decide not to submit to the personal slights anymore it usually signals the beginning of the end. It’s lose-lose whichever way you chose. That’s why I do not recommend primal therapy in general, and I cringe when someone I care about says they may go back, despite past mistreatment.
Getting away from those personal attacks can lead to recovery, and a general good feeling. If by chance years go by away from the group, and then the person becomes involved again with some of them, the personal attacks may start up again. The same confused and nauseated feelings may arise again and spoil the person’s life once more. It is at this point that he or she may realizes how constantly under duress they were for the majority of their time in therapy, and they hadn’t even realized it. They may realize how those personal attacks led to the duress that inspired them to write testimonials about how their feelings are valid, how they are good people, and how they are doing well.
Many of these testimonial writers fail to remember the attacks they endured before they submitted, and do not recognize how that submission of “defenses” and linkage to childhood abuse led to approval from primal people or therapists, (and perhaps a rise in social rank) that produced a good feeling that led to the testimonials. Of course, the interpretation of the participant is going to be different at the time, it will link their feeling from the abuse to their childhood, and then because they think they felt that completely, they are less vulnerable to such personal attacks in the future. I think they are incorrect in their interpretation, I think they are still vulnerable to personal attacks in the present day, and it is sad to me that they may not avoid them as a result of this process. They may accept them, “treasuring the trigger” they are told, and when they occur in therapy again, they stay, because they see it as further opportunity to resolve childhood feelings. This is, in my honest opinion, how people can stay in an abusive therapy, and become abusive themselves. They do not recognize the personal attacks they hated so much initially as actual abuse anymore, in fact, they may now see them as opportunities for growth. So why not help somebody out and give them an opportunity for growth, and attack them personally?
Although it is clear to people outside of primal therapy why personal attacks are wrong in therapy, in primal therapy, these boundaries blur away and become confused.
