Primal_The_Only_Hope
Is Primal Therapy Really the Only Hope?
One of the myths I heard in primal therapy is that it is the last and only hope for some people, and all other therapies are less effective and in some way just don’t cut it. I believe they have it backwards, in fact some other therapies are effective, and have been cleverly measured with experiments to be effective. In fact primal therapy I think is one of the least effective therapies out there, in some cases it could be considered to be iatrogenic (meaning it causes more problems than it fixes). I consider it worse than being merely ineffective, or put another way, a placebo treatment, I think it is damaging in so many cases.
In fact I have a hypothesis that primal theory is iatrogenic for depression. More specifically it seems to create a poor model of the world that leads to people holding hidden bad attitudes towards most other adults outside of primal therapy. This superior attitude of “I know something you don’t or will never see” effectively isolates many primal people from normal people. Mainstream work and study is often seen as meaningless, or “unreal”. Academics are seen as too intellectual and sick. What they teach in schools and colleges is often seen as all wrong. Basically there is nothing left, primal theory sometimes leads the believer to feel that everything is irreversibly messed up. “If only primal therapy would become more widespread” the group member often comes to believe.
Think back and ask “Did I feel so badly about my childhood, my parents, and the whole state of the world and my life BEFORE I read the primal books?” Be careful though to understand how primal theory tends to darken the memory retroactively, so that you come to focus on or even create “pain” from earlier years.
In short, I think there is great gain to learning about how this is basically like a cult. It is a belief system that explains everything, including the big questions, as do other religions. Learning about how cults work, how they require a commitment (which boosts lifelong loyalty), and how they rely on “justification of effort” effects to keep existing members.
Former primal patients who may feel hopeless and that primal was the only hope, and that even didn’t work, should realize that that comes directly out of primal theory. They will probably benefit by stopping using this inaccurate model. Learning testable and tested models of the mind may help. I believe that having an inaccurate model of mental illness can actually contribute to mental illness. (For example think of the religious demon-possession model, or Freudian theory sometimes (for example with Tourette’s syndrome, see How to Think Straight about Psychology, by Stanovich), and the problems they caused). I think primal theory often helps create hopelessness that is then labeled as “parasympathetic excess” that originated with birth trauma.
See the section on “cult” and “authoritarianism” for more information that may help you get out of the belief that primal is the only hope. I include links to some helpful books there that explain things better than this site does.
My opinion is that if a patient has tried other therapies, it would be disastrous to try primal therapy as a last resort. There are better, more valid options in my opinion; primal therapy should not under any circumstances be the catching net for difficult cases that have tried other therapies.
Primal Therapy is not the last and only hope; in fact observations suggest it is one of the least effective approaches or worse.
