The_Evolution_Of_Feelings
Evolution and Primal Theory
In primal theory, evolution is often discussed or eluded to. Janov links his theory to evolution in different ways at different times. According to primal theory, one would conclude from Janov’s conglomerate of writings that feelings and tears evolved for purposes of healing. In addition it is proposed that Primal Pain is as an important factor in evolution, one previously missed, and particularly important in the evolution of humans (from apes), the human cortex and “repression.”
However, it may be that feelings and tears evolved not for healing but for social group status, survival and reproductive reasons. A further analysis of what evolution actually is may shatter the appealing view that primal theory has about feelings, apes and evolution.
For something to evolve it must lead to an individual with a given trait having more offspring than peers. Over time the gene for a trait will become more frequent in each generation. This change in gene frequency from one generation to another is the very definition of evolution. Thus evolution is both a demonstrable fact in this sense and a good scientific theory in a wider sense, in which all the mechanisms are already known.
For primal theory to be considered part of science, it must have connectivity to other areas of science. I believe the lack of connectivity between primal theory and evolutionary theory is one of many examples that calls into question the validity of the claim that primal theory is science rather than pseudoscience (see “DETECTING REAL SCIENCE” section, criteria number 6).
Anger and the expression of rage likely evolved in primates (and other animals) not to heal but to dominate and gain rank in the group, or to defend resources. For females higher rank would mean better access to resources, such as food, and for males high social order likely led to him having more offspring. The expression of anger in humans has not been shown to be very beneficial in terms of healing either psychological or physical health, and this sheds doubt on the primal theory of the evolution of feelings. In fact some studies showed negative behavioral effects or negative health effects of anger expression (here is just one of many examples).
Tears may have evolved for social communication reasons and bonding. There is no consistent evidence for the healing brought about by tears, so this would not to account for increased reproductive rates. More likely is that the tears came to signify genuine feeling that are difficult to fake, and in themselves became a powerful bond enhancer between group members. Tears may have become powerful social movers due to their genuine appearance. Tears also communicate something that would go unrecognized without them, deep distress that demands sympathy. It is the social bonds and loyalties that tears engender that likely provided the evolutionary edge and led to more offspring. Its not a very appealing theory, but it seems to fit the data better than the idea that tears evolved because they magically healed. As many people have found out in primal therapy, deep prolonged crying does NOT increase reproductive success. In fact Janov’s books and primal therapy seem to reduce reproduction rates for various reasons (that’s not necessarily a good or a bad thing).
I think feelings evolved to increase reproductive success in an increasingly competitive and complicated social group. Feelings evolved to make sure the individual has more resources and more offspring than competitors in the group, or to ensure more offspring through cooperation. So to an ape individual, following their feelings and expressing their feelings will feel good and may bring them social success. (This may not work in human cultures in the same way it works in apes.)
Now take some time to think about Janov says about evolution and feelings. There are many healing mechanisms that have evolved in the body, but most of them are invisible because there is no advantage to them being visible. If anger expression evolved as a way to get “feeling out” in order to trigger healing, why is it necessary for it to be visible? Why did a way of “getting feelings out” (which is a bad model in itself, but that is another story) not simply evolve internally? The implication is that the visible demonstrable feelings such as rage, anger, crying evolved to affect others – not to bring about healing.
If the expression of feelings had advantages evolutionarily speaking then it would evolve to feel good for the individual (as it did indeed, and as it did for sex and eating similarly). Now, just because something feels good and affects others in a self-enhancing way does not mean it heals. Although I doubt it, there may be some possibility that the deep expression of feeling may have healing as a unintended consequence. However, the scientific type research into this possibility does not look promising – nor does some anecdotal stories of individuals who get into heavy catharsis. Think of the boxer, the wife beater, the heavy metal singer -do they get less angry the more anger they “get out?” Or think of the constant cryer – is it true that the the more she cries the more she “gets out” the sadness – so that she has no sadness thereafter? Practically, what do you see in the real world?
Now think of it another way. If deep prolonged feeling, or deep birth relivings is indeed so curative, then why has it not evolved in humans? Why do we not see a superior race of people reliving birth a lot and having more reproductive success than the rest of us?
The beauty of nature is that we already are the perfect balance of traits for surviving in this world, at least in the environment of the recent past. We don’t need to enhance the amount of crying, anger or other feelings artificially at an expensive clinic. People cry rarely and express rage rarely precisely because that is the best strategy evolutionary speaking. If it would be better to be more expressive, that would either evolve genetically or come about in cultural change. In short, you don’t need to worry about it, and you don’t need to pay anyone to experience your feelings. You are already feeling.
The primal explanation of the evolution of feelings is most appealing. But which one fits the evidence best?
Just as a tangential sidenote: However, there are problems in adopting evolutionary theory as a replacement religion in life (for example the former CEO of Enron’s favorite book was The Selfish Gene by Dawkins (which is a good book if you interpret it correctly)). Some philosphers say that evolutionary theory gives no guidance regarding morality, so that an ethical code is needed that is seperate from Darwinian theory. In addition, critics of evolutionary psychology say that on the fringes of the subject there are unfalsifiable theories – especially the stories about the evolution of complex behaviors. At it’s core though, evolutionary theory is real science, and is seen as the common cohesive underlying theory binding the life sciences and psychology.
Natural Selection vs. Primal Pain as the Mechanism of Evolution
Janov in his earlier work(s) explained that not only was his own self-declared “discovery” of Primal Pain an important concept in psychology, but it also was a new mechanism to explain evolution (see quotations below). He mentioned that he thought that Pain was the underlying evolutionary pressure that led to the evolution of the human cortex, for example.
However, the testable and often tested theory of natural selection already adequately explains the evolution of the cortex. It really is remarkably simple: those individuals who inherited larger brains through genetic sexual variation (and/or genetic mutation) had more offspring than their smaller brained cousins. (This is probably due to the advantages brought about by greater language, social skills and logic capacities.) Primal Pain is irrelevant to the theory.
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Examining Janov’s words on Evolution
To illustrate Janov’s ideas on evolution, here are some of his own words from Prisoner’s of Pain (1980), with my own discussion and evaluation in between:
“The human race has in fact been ‘designed,’ over millions of years, to cope with Pain…Most of the human race shares, to one degree or another, chronic desperation. It seems as though the species has spent most of its energies seeking out ways to handle its fears…We see now why humans evolve with the ability to develop ideas.” (p. 99-100)
Notice how Janov capitalizes Pain, this means he is talking about Primal Pain – the entity that he self-declared he had discovered. So in effect he is saying that Primal Pain has been the driving force for human design and evolution. That would make him perhaps the greatest thinker and discoverer the world has ever seen. He says that evolution from apes to humans was driven by “chronic desperation” (which by that he probably means Primal Pain), and that humans are the “neurotic branch” of the ape evolutionary tree. In fact, this illustrates a terrible misunderstanding of evolutionary theory by Janov- evolution is simply the change in gene frequencies in a population – and it changes according to how many offspring the environment will support for certain traits and genes. It is not a Faustian struggle against the torture of Primal Pain. In fact it does not need an additional mechanism such as “Pain” to describe it, the theory is not lacking for a missing factor. The mechanism is genetic, and this has been confirmed and tested in the field of biology and biochemistry many times. Evolutionary theory does not need to be embellished with Primal Pain in order to find some meaning in it.
“We see in the physiologic and biochemical changes resulting from Primal Therapy a form of unlocking of [the genetic] code so that patients can resume the fulfillment of their genetic potential…It is quite possible that another [other than Darwinian] factor operates in evolution to account for the development of new structures and new species. That factor is the dialectic interplay between organisms and their environment, which seems to produce structures to cope with that environment” (p. 120).
This is incorrect, first Janov slips in an unsubstantiated claim (that can be easily missed) by saying that Primal Therapy results in positive biologic change, then goes even further by claiming that the expression of the genetic code has been altered. He then shows a terrible lack of knowledge about the history of the development of the theory of evolution, and the science that has tested it. He hints at here, and elaborates elsewhere in the same section of Prisoners of Pain (see quotations below from p. 238) that an individual produces structures during it’s lifetime in response to the environment, Janov is returning to the ideas of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (circa early 1800s) (see also Introduction to Physical Anthropology, Jurmain, 10th Ed. pages 27-28). Lamarck’s idea of change through use or disuse turned out to be incorrect.
“In the gestation and birth process, man recreates his entire evolution from fish to monkey to human” (p. 194).
This is actually incorrect, although there is some limited exterior resemblance, the human fetus does not actually recreate evolution in the womb. Haeckel coined the phrase “ontology recapitulates phylogeny,” but it turned out to be incorrect and he was famous for producing several embryo drawings that often overemphasized similarities between embryos of related species. (See UC Berkeley’s brief description of Haeckel’s idea here).
“Human evolution is the encoded memory of Pain. The way we are built, the language we use, and our sophisticated toolmaking abilities evolved around a central core of Pain… We developed the larger cortex…Why? One answer is that…Adversity enabled us to have a larger cortex with which to deal with that adversity” (p. 235).
The first statement has no evidence for it – it is based upon the assumptions that Janov’s own Primal Pain is the cause of human evolution, and on an an assumption that things can be ’remembered’ in the encoding of genes from before an individuals lifetime. Both assumptions are not correct. He says that Primal Pain is the reason we developed a larger cortex – but evolution does not work that way. As mentioned earlier, a larger cortex comes about because individuals who have genes for slightly larger brains (through the natural genetic variability that comes from sexual reproduction and/or genetic mutation) reproduced slightly more offspring. Over a period of time the gene frequency for the slightly larger brain trait became more frequent in successive generations.
“Darwin’s theory of adaptation as we have come to know it may not be true at all. The foundation of evolution resides in the way the organism utilizes its own inner resources for survival and changes internally in response to the external environment. It isn’t that the external environment ’selects’ those types most fit to survive but rather the environment actually produces different structures for survival.” (p. 238)
It may be that Janov had some misunderstanding of Darwinian evolution- Darwin’s idea of natural selection was a great step forward from Lamarck’s, and was a theory that survived the discovery of genetics, and still today survives testing from genetics and biochemistry. Again, Janov here restates Lamarck’s position of the organism changing internally in response to the environment and then passing on the newly acquired changed genes. This shows a misunderstanding and misuse of epigenetics (the interaction between environment and genes) and Janov is flatly wrong here. For example, if you build your left bicep into an enormous bulge at the gym for 20 years, and then reproduce- the offspring do not inherit a large left bicep. Genes do not work like that.
“Primal Therapy reverses the evolutionary trend where the gap between thinking and feeling is widening. In healing the split we may well be restoring human being. If evolution goes on as it has been, we shall die form our own survival mechanisms” (p. 240).
How do we know the gap between thinking and feeling is actually widening? Is Janov advocating a return to ape-like behavior? Would that work practically? – perhaps it is worth studying how apes actually live – and leave the rose-tinted-glasses at home. Apes and monkeys have shown to display some disturbing behavior towards one another, including murder, infanticide, organised beatings, denial of food and rape. But that is a tangent - everyone like apes - but to improve our lives, reduce crimes and prevent wars, what evidence is there amongst humans is there that closing the gap between emotions and thoughts will make for better people? Others would argue that the opposite is true, that we need to separate feelings from thoughts to prevent impulsive crimes, greed, wars, and in order to consider others in general. Although there are a few emotions that are caring and social, there are also emotions that are not. Feelings are not simplistically good or bad.
Janov’s last sentence, in italics, is yet another example that could be held up as evidence that he thought his therapy could save the world. Think of the deductive logic – he says evolution has split the human and made man sick – his own therapy is the only one that can mend the split – the human race may die if the split widens – therefore his therapy could save the human race. Primal Therapy, as a result then becomes a cause for its believers – a cause to save the world or at least heal people. This is why people acted in cult-like ways in primal therapy; they have been brainwashed by a logical deductive argument, not understanding that the assumptions of the premises are false.
The above excerpts in quotation marks are from Prisoners of Pain, (1980) Janov, Arthur , New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-15791-6
