Real vs. Unreal

In his primal books, Dr Janov often referred to the real and unreal person.  He presented it as if they were scientific constructs, and many primal people still divide people into “real” or “unreal” even today.  However, in this section I plan to discuss how this is pure social influence at work.

Real=Cool

Unreal=Uncool

It is as simple as that.

They are nothing but social norms set up by a new generation coming out of the sixties.  It is like the social influence in high school. Whatever Janov labeled as unreal the reader would avoid.  In trying to be “real” I believe the reader is inadvertently being funneled towards joining the primal therapy group.  No one outside of primal therapy is real.  No one feels anything, and all the “unreal” people are robotic.  The “unreal” are those that don’t cry, don’t feel anything, or those that have different politics, or those who speak in the wrong voice, or the homosexuals, or certain cultures.  Notice how these unfalsifiable beliefs are impossible to prove wrong.  The believer “just knows” when people are unreal, and they are unreal by definition of their beliefs, politics or occupation.  So the primal follower has they’re ideas set in stone about mainstream people.

Can you recognize the potential problems that could be caused by thinking other people are unreal and don’t feel anything?  If they are unreal, maybe they deserve to be put straight about things. Maybe you have to be harsh with them because they have no feelings to hurt anyway. So do what you must to protect yourself from their life-sucking zombie march.  Can you see how hurt people are going to be if you treat them as if they are “unreal”, and if you develop crazy ideas about “unreal” people having the power to drain your life-force?  Do you also see how this would protect your belief system, because anyone not believing in primal theory is immediately going to be taken as “unreal”, avoided and even harshly handled.

The “real” are expressive. ”Real” is remarkably ethnocentric. Ethnocentric not so much on racial lines, but ethnocentric to the culture of Los Angeles (where the expression of feeling that is perceived as genuine is at a premium in the entertainment industry, amongst other things) and to the United States (primal therapy encourages an almost exaggerated state of individualism) with an added ingredient of preference for the more expressive cultures (so long as they are first world cultures, usually: there is more admiration for Italy’s culture, for example, than for similarly expressive cultures that are poorer, for example Central or South American countries). It resembles the values and cultural norms defined by the leaders of primal therapy, and it can change over time. At one time, and perhaps still today, “real” people, for example“say it as it is”, they curse sometimes when they speak. It was “real” to be working class it seems, or at least non-intellectual.  But, wasn’t what is defined as “real” centered on how Janov was himself?  What is “real” can change at the whim of the leader or the group consensus.  What about being socialist, is that still defined as “real” by Janov?  Maybe it’s “real” now to take care of third line needs such as money; starting in the1980s (or before), perhaps greed became ”real,” I don’t know, maybe it still is today.  In the early 1970s it was totally “real” (or cool) to quit work in mainstream psychology so that they could do menial work while they trained to be primal therapist (as mentioned The Primal Scream). 

The point is: it is just ridiculous and lacking in cultural relativism.

The effect this “real” and “unreal” labeling had on primal people is almost unbelievable.  Even in this decade I came across people making choices about education or jobs based on the “real” or “unreal” categories as defined by Janov or his patients in their testimonials in the 1970s.

“Real” and “unreal” were nothing more than new social norms set out in books that set up a new oppositional cult-ure.