Your Stories and Comments 2

 

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“I was a ‘patient’ at the Los Angeles [Primal] Institute in 1978/79, also went to the Paris [Primal] Institute for a ‘top-up’ later and in between ‘buddied’ for a while with others in London in primal boxes. I was from London and was interviewed to see if I was suitable by Vivien Janov at a posh hotel. I was required to sign and pay for an affidavit saying I would not disclose anything I learned in primal therapy. I would have done anything to get this therapy, which I believed would totally transform my life. 

 

I had been completely convinced by Janov’s books and saved and borrowed the upfront money required (about £3,000, I think). I was 28 and quite naive and very shy. I was quickly puzzled and worried on arriving in West Hollywood to meet several discontented patients, some of whom had been in primal therapy for 5 or 6 years. This didn’t match Janov’s claims to near total success in a quite short time. I was also suspicious when I heard that [Senior Therapist] owned a Rolls Royce and my first therapist told me that she, too, owned one. At one point I heard that someone, a disaffected ex-patient, had come into the Primal Institute wielding an axe. But I persevered through my doubts, gradually used up my therapy session tokens, and stayed in LA for 18 months, beginning the training briefly towards the end but deciding against continuing it.

 

Whereas I had expected clear ‘Primals’ and a marked, cumulative sense of health and resolution, I seemed to have months of quite fuzzy regressive and emotional experiences in therapy. Some few were relatively dramatic and sometimes the cathartic aftermath of a strong ‘Primal’ left me feeling very good, unusually relaxed, for a few hours. But overall there was something disappointing about the whole experience. There wasn’t always much continuity of assigned therapist, so that no-one would necessarily know about your case and your progress with any continuity. I wasn’t helped by the habit of having to sign up competitively for therapists in group and getting little of their time while surrounded by 30 or 40 other patients lying on the floor. Post-group was difficult for me as a shy person, yet the therapists insisted that all must assert themselves and take risks, and not ‘act out’. There was a heavy emphasis on the principle that mummy/daddy type Pains lay behind all or most problematic present behavior. Yet a lot of the benefits, such as they were, actually came from the mini-cognitive debriefings therapists gave after the intensive feelings/’Primals’ in the group; and also from simple encouragement and, in effect, cognitive-behavioral ‘homework’ assignments including risk-taking exercises.

 

I can’t say much about Janov himself, or whether he consciously deceived people, since I rarely met him. But he had the usual charismatic aura. Once in a post-group I spoke about my sense of lack of meaning and conviction; Janov said, out of the blue, ‘Your father made you afraid of your own convictions’, although Janov had no first-hand knowledge of me or my life. It sounded very impressive at the time, as if Janov were psychic, but I realize now he was simply doing the Fritz Perls thing. (The Fritz Perls thing is of ‘immediate challenge’, of believing so entirely in your instincts as a therapist that you couldn’t be wrong). Therapists couldn’t really do wrong in their own eyes because whatever they said, if it seemed to lead to any kind of emotional reaction, they were successful.          

 

Since I stayed in the therapy/counseling field afterwards (I am now an academic in counseling), I have some theoretical insights into and reservations about primal therapy. The biggest one is that Janov stresses so much the childhood ‘Pain’ principle (the emotionally neglectful and damaging parents) and birth trauma. I have no doubt that many people suffer from their parents, as I did in certain ways. But I have come to see that shyness, for example, is an inherited trait that is not caused by poor parenting, nor helped by ‘primalling’. Similarly, anxiety, obsessive and other problematic traits are often inherited. You only have to watch your own children, raised lovingly if fallibly, to realize that much of their personality (including its problems) is innate and stubborn and will only be modified by time and experience.  

 

I think it can help to get some people in touch with suppressed feelings (I am still grateful for that - I do occasionally cry spontaneously, which would probably not have happened without primal therapy) and to encourage straight talking, but these are not at all unique to primal therapy. I would certainly like to see some programme of research into the primal-type process. Some stories about ‘mystics’ or shamans (read about Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘process’ and U.G. Krishnamurti’s ‘calamity’, for example) resemble the primal account but are even more impressive when the process is spontaneous and there is no therapist guiding or benefiting from it.      

 

I was amazed to read that [Senior Author], Janov’s one-time closest collaborator, who had primalled for years, including having many birth primals, had died at age 61, with cancer, after becoming a born-again Christian who spoke in tongues, thus flatly contradicting Janov’s claims that post-primal people would probably not get cancer, would live long lives and not be religious! I myself have high blood pressure and various other, as yet minor, health problems, but these are statistically fairly normal, age-related, lifestyle-related and genetic in origin. All those years ago, I was persuaded by Janov’s writings that his therapy would lead to an exceptionally long and healthy life.      

 

I felt confused and guilty for some time after my primal therapy experiences. Had I simply copped-out? Was I doomed by my own cowardice - failure to stop acting out, to experience more and deeper Primals - to a lifetime of neurosis? Gradually I came to be very skeptical about Janov’s claims but also about all other claims in the psychotherapy field. Primal therapy can help, depending on the nature of your problems, but it can also be quite wrong for you. Similarly, other therapies can harm or help. Most of them have a large element of founder-bias, therapist idiosyncrasy and hit-or-miss character about them. I have subsequently tried some primal integration, psychoanalytic psychotherapy and person-centered therapy, but not to much avail. Primal therapy is more emotionally powerful, often, but can go wrong, can get you into an impasse for years, and isn’t the answer to everything. The principle of evidence-based or empirically supported therapy can be helpful in guiding potential consumers but tends to favor establishment-friendly, easily measured therapies.   

 

I would seriously caution all potential primal patients (clients) to study websites like this one before committing to primal (or any other) therapy. A lot of money is involved and there is usually no way of getting it back if you are dissatisfied or feel abused.

…I really appreciate the site, which I stumbled on by chance.”

E.K. Europe, January 2008. 

 

[E.K. is not only an academic in the psychotherapy counseling field, as he mentions in the story, he is also an author of several well researched books in the field as well as peer reviewed journal articles.  A couple of names have been replaced with "Senior Therapist" or "Senior Author" because it is not so important who in particular; but the fact they were primal therapists, authors or participants is important, because it shines some light on some of the claims of primal therapy regarding primal therapists or post-primal people.]

 

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“I remember being disappointed with the first 3 weeks in-depth therapy and didn’t gel with the therapist.  However, I was impressed by their whole approach - being ‘real’ and ‘honest’ and the outspokenness of group members was liberating to me.  This was some 15 years’ ago, a long time back, but generally, I bought-in to their model and, at that time, would strongly defend it to any ‘outsiders’, some of whom suggested it was cult-like.

 

I was not disappointed during the period I spent there but, looking back, it was very ‘awesome’ in that the approach is nothing like anything you ever encounter in real life and, for me, it was quite exhilarating to be able to explore being verbally uninhibited and having direct communication with people as well as accessing ‘old feelings’.  Of course, as the group members and primal therapists are all working to the same model - i.e. that any outburst or attack is ‘your stuff’ - it makes it very unlike the ‘real world’ where confrontation and honesty are often met with hurt, defensiveness, loss of friends! etc. etc.

 

(Going back to Art Janov’s book - I don’t know if you are aware that he gave a public talk in LA (which someone filmed) in the late 1980s to a large audience, mostly primal patients, about his work.  From my recollection, during this, he admitted (along the lines of….) that when he had first witnessed a patient accessing and feeling their old feelings, he had been awestruck and believed that he had hit upon something big…  In this state, he impulsively made unsubstantiated claims in good faith about the power of primal therapy as a kind of cure-all. (There are copies of this film around - maybe you could get a copy).  So, you could say that he did ‘own up’ to some of the claims in the original book being misleading although you could also argue that it should have been withdrawn from sale. or re-written) 

 

So, all in all, I bought-in strongly to the therapy which I felt did help me in understanding my feelings.  HOWEVER - as time went on, I saw a change in the Institute’s approach with some very worrying outcomes (I am not sure whether the Institute changed or my perception of it clarified during the time I became less and less involved with it).  My concerns were, and remain, as follows:-

 

1.  Therapists ‘crossing boundaries’ in insulting vulnerable patients - who rationalized this behavior by saying ‘they’re only doing that to trigger my feelings and help me”.

 

2.  The Institute is co-run so there was no objectivity or opportunity to make a formal complaint to another party - also there was a general lack of transparency within an organization that preaches openness and honesty.

 

3.  If you did make a complaint, it was “your feeling” - it’s Catch 22 - the patient was never right.

 

4.  The Institute and therapists didn’t want to look at themselves (as people who have feelings and defenses) and you had to be ’crazy’ for wanting to question them. 

 

5.  Questions over ethics - if the Institute has become a law unto itself - who regulates it?

 

6.  Therapists are treated as ‘gurus’ who can do no wrong

 

7.  Group bullying was witnessed with ganging-up and groups taking the side of the therapist against individuals.

 

8. Some existing patients have been in primal therapy for 20 years+ which begs a question about its efficacy.

 

I believe that, in some instances, gaining an understanding of how deeper feelings drive neurosis and behavior is beneficial as an adjunct to other therapy and within an agreed timeframe. I think that learning how to recognize and access old feelings is enlightening.  Feeling old feelings is relieving but nothing more.   To constantly live at the ‘primal’ level of feelings is unhelpful and indulgent and like ‘picking at an old scab’.  I think many patients are there for the attention (good or bad) that they receive from the therapists.   Moreover, this therapy takes patients away from the ‘real world’ where a different set of values and behaviors exists - one in which we must all live - unless we remain within a cult.   

 

Thanks for this website - more people need to stand up and say that the Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes.”

 

C.F. Europe , December 2007.

[Former patient at the Primal Institute in Los Angeles, circa 1990s]

 

            For T.R.’s story/comments, a trainee at Dr Janov’s Primal Center, Venice California, in the 1990s, a new section has been created: “FORMER TRAINEE INTERVIEW”.  It includes a testimonial retraction of sorts.

September 2007

“I found a paperback edition of The Primal Revolution in a second hand bookshop. After reading it I was eager to hear more about the “transformed” lives of people who had done their therapy at the ‘Official’ center(s). I started to visit the message board at www.primal-page.com, which happened to close down shortly afterwards. Most of the discussions were either warnings or negative acting out by primal cultists. Satisfied former customers never turned up to share their success stories…. although the cultists seemed to think it was enough to say: ‘It works because I say so!’ Then someone set up an alternative discussion forum two years ago. I was still hopeful. Not anymore. It started out with good intentions but ended up with the same mixture…. No satisfied former clients, except cultists…. If any ‘post-primal’ people really do exist I doubt they would want to hang out there. However, you might be interested to read an article by a disillusioned Primal Institute therapist… [see ‘FORMER THERAPIST ARTICLE’]
Keep up the good work!”                                                                                  

B.D.  August 2007

[With this next story, it becomes apparent that the writer and I disagree on some issues.  However her story illustrates many interesting things.  To be clear, I don't agree with her recommendation of primal therapy (even if it does come with warnings), or the recommendation of reading the updated Primal Scream or the primal website and I do not share the same model of mind used by the writer (I don't share the same confidence in the gate/pain suppression model of feeling and anxiety, for example), but those sections of writing do reveal a lot and I am so grateful for her point of view and her willingness to break some of the silence and secrecy surrounding primal therapy.  I hope her words on "primal bullying" help prevent it from happening in the future, although I think it may be a consequence of the belief system operating on a group system.]

 

“If a friend or family member came to me for help with therapy in mind, I would introduce PT (primal therapy) to them, but with several WARNINGS. Those would be:

 

1. You need to have massive amounts of money to spend from your savings now and be able to continue to afford it, so having a very stable job is a must.

 

2. I would recommend them to read the revised/updated version of the ‘Primal Scream’ along with the primal website. Depending on their response to the book and on the Primal Website as well, would depend on how I’d move on with them in regards to pimping out the therapy.

 

3. I’d tell them that there is no cure, and that the basics of the therapy are to get you close to who you are and your feelings so that you can feel stuff as anything tragic or stressful situations in life occur. I would say that in no way is it going to make your life ‘easy street’. The therapy should be used to ‘manage’ your feelings and learn where in the past they belong should they be ‘just a feeling’. Smart patients know when to feel and when not to in the real world. That is the key and how it should work long term.

 

4. I would warn them with the tales of what happened to me, and that I sometimes wonder if I had done the right thing or not by going to the center. I got to such a gut-deep level with my feelings that I went crazy, quit my job, was always feeling hopeless, physically ill, then couldn’t afford the therapy anymore (because I had quit my job) and wound up in a worse spot that I was in before I had originally started! This also made me return to being a smoker after having been a non-smoker for 3 years!

 

5. I would also tell them that for this therapy to work, that you must NOT spend all your time with primal patients. How to not make the therapy your life is key. Might be necessary in the beginning stages, but I’d explain that later on that it is very important to integrate into the real world separating your life from therapy and not making them one in the same.

 

6. I’d tell them that there is no end to feeling your feelings. Once you start, you’ve opened the gates for them to keep flowing or probe you to flow. And that if you choose not to feel that it’s difficult to restrain yourself depending on how close you are to those feelings.

 

7. [her opinion is that she doesn't recommend primal therapy to those who were sexually abused]

 

So, that’s what I’d tell a perspective therapy-goer if they were to ask me for advice.

 

I only read the very first edition of the “Primal Scream”, and that was when I was roughly 17 years old! I had not taken any medication until I was about 27-ish. When I had initially begun the therapy, I came to the center 100% clean. I had quit smoking two weeks prior, and a few months prior to that, I had quit taking tranquilizers. My therapist after noticing that “I was a stone” (unfeeling, non-reactive) thought that I was overwhelmed and overloaded (and I was) told me to see the center’s on-board psychiatrist that had put me on Prozac which could have been my first week there? I cannot remember completely. But I did eventually break and began feeling shortly after - although I wasn’t a “pro”.
I was never put on too much medication at the center, and they always were flexible enough to let me go off of it when I wanted to. So, after about 4-6 months of being on Prozac, I started taking less and less and then got off of it as I was becoming “too numb” (which I was). But a couple years into therapy, when my gates were clearly open and things were getting too much for me, I started back on the meds. I started taking Paxil. This is after I had gone crazy, quit my job, become irresponsible and out of control.

 

Immediately before therapy, I was on no medication, but a few months before that; I had been taking 6-8 Xanax a day. Considering the job that I had at the time, it was a necessity to get by.

 

My problems before therapy were frequent anxiety/panic attacks, abnormal attachments to specific women, insomnia, hyper-sensitivity, random vomiting, and all sorts of health problems including migraines, fatigue, and a weak immune system. However, before therapy, I had A LOT more energy and ambition. I began to lose energy and ambition a couple years into therapy. From 2004, (post therapy) I started having suicidal thoughts.

 

Pretty much everything’s still the same except for the random vomiting. My headaches are less severe, and I don’t need Xanax as much. Now, I only use Xanax a few times a month for insomnia and severe anxiety or when I’m crazy upset.

The primal sub-culture, if you ask me, is frightening. It does strange things to people including myself. It makes you want to pick at every little detail whether it be gestures, eye-movement, words, actions - EVERYTHING. Primal patients become VERY vigilant people and will analyze your every move. This is “Primal Bullying”. They will tell you that you’re acting out all the time, that you’re not doing PT correctly, that you’re needy, that your eyes moved the wrong way when you spoke to them, that you’re not “real” yet, and come up with all sorts of psychological explanations as to why you’re behaving the way you are. If you try to defend yourself, they will tell you to “take it to group”. They will tell you to “feel your feelings”. They will tell you that your defending yourself is an “act-out”. You must sit there quietly while they observe and analyze you because they’re the ones that are doing the therapy correctly and that you must be like them. If you nit-pick them, they will just tell you to “feel it” because you’re in a feeling. Right or wrong, it’s just too much.

 

In the real world, nit-picking happens too, but not as outrageously. Sure, it’s nice to have opinions and even be opinionated. But, in my opinion, it is unhealthy to express your opinions ALL THE TIME and IN EVERY SINGLE SITUATION. There is a time and place for everything. Primal patients will think that “group” is 24/7, and that can’t be right.

 

I have also found the ones too quick to jump on the “You’re too needy” bandwagon to be guilty of neediness ever so more. Some primal patients resented any need I had in me.

 

It’s competitive in the world of PT. You see patients virtually flexing their muscles in group or before a session. They tackle the flaws in others like an American football player. The best primaler is awarded with popularity and admiration. Everyone wants to get to know this person more. Men will want to [be with] her. Women will flock to her in awe. The worst primaler will be unpopular and other patients will be compelled to instruct him. One patient once didn’t want to hire me for the cleaning business as I ‘didn’t have enough therapy under my belt.’ In the real world, I would have been called out on for being a “n00b”. After I had a few years under my belt, that same patient was looking for a buddy and turned me down for the same reason. Probably because she remembers seeing me in group unable to feel at some point. You’re a loser if you’re new to the therapy and you’re not worth the time of the more “experienced” patients. The ‘experienced’ patients are unfriendly and patronizing.

 

Life is so much bigger than PT. Some patients even go as far as thinking that enjoying ones self is an “act-out”. Most primal participants that I have come across aren’t down to earth. Everything that’s up for discussion is the damned therapy.  Their opinions of child-rearing, politics, and life in general are so extreme that it’s impossible to have an adult-like conversation with them. Any form of extremism is unhealthy. Why is it that most primal people all have in common as to what is “enjoyable”. And I know if everyone’s thinking alike, that’s someone’s not thinking.

 

Another problem I have with primal people is that most of them think it’s ‘real’ to forget their manners. You, very rarely, hear a primal patient saying, ‘What’s up?’, ‘please’, ‘thank you’, ‘I’m sorry’, ‘excuse me’, ‘pardon me’, etc. It’s very frustrating when I find that they have totally confused and twisted the theory of PT to suit their own agendas and needs. Primal therapy, while it does emphasize being ‘real,’ it does NOT teach one to act impolite and inconsiderate of another person’s feelings. Some primal people are downright rude in the name of ‘Primal Therapy.’

 

To top that off, some go as far as to say that it’s ‘child-abuse’ to teach a kid manners. This is absolutely outlandish and ridiculous in more ways than one.

The therapists have a life and enough problems on their own. They are going through the process along with us. What’s different is that they have the desire to help others and know more than we do. This is not to say that I find all the therapists innocent. Nor is this to say that I’ve never complained about certain therapists. I have even criticized them outwardly in group and in sessions. In fact, I have found some therapists to be damaging, destructive, and unprofessional.

I still sometimes wonder where I’d be now if it weren’t for the therapy. I will give credit to the center for teaching me how to feel. I am now able to feel. I can feel intense joy as well as pain. I used to never be able to cry. This is nice that I now have feelings. However, when I feel pain, it’s too intense for me to handle and I lose my ability to function unlike my neighbors in the world. I often envy other non-primal people for being able to pocket their feelings to stay sane. Why can’t I do this? Why can’t I put things aside? Why do I still obsess and dwell about so and so hurting me the other day - even though I barely know this person? Why am I so overly hyper-sensitive? Is this good or bad? Does it mean that I’m alive now as Ms Therapist had told me? Whatever the case may be, I am not a happy person. I want to be able to ‘close up’ some. My gates are STILL too far open. I don’t even know how to clam up. I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder…. perhaps some of it caused by the pain inflicted on me from a few patients at the center? 

 

I went through some heavy, intense, and rough times with Paulo and Kiera (primal participants) that has hurt me more than you’ll know.  I traveled a VERY hard road while I was living in LA attending the center. I still wonder if I had been better off not attending PT - even though it did me some good.

It broke my heart reading some of [this website's ‘Personal Attacks in Therapy’] as I remembered being put down and bullied in the past by them. I also remember how I had so much trouble standing up for myself back then. Toward the end, though, I was starting to fight back. Now, I wouldn’t hesitate to rip anyone’s face off verbally if they attacked me.

 

I will say something interesting here. When I took a vacation with Mario to LA a couple of Januarys ago, I had my first ever ‘psychotic episode.’ It was at Nora’s house after some kind of ‘primal-like game’ that was played with other members and post members of PT. With the exceptions of a very few, being around primal patients is VERY disturbing for me. I was once again seen as that “needy and weak” girl that needed to be someone’s mom.  I realize I cannot forget my roots, but still…. I am disturbed beyond sanity…. I also realize that a feeling was emerging - one that wasn’t a good time to feel. Then I went outside to have a smoke and found a UFO….. Crazy! :) I had overdosed on tranquilizers that night before bed and they did nothing for me when they would have normally knocked me into submission and apathy. That’s how crazy I felt. I will never forget that. I have canned many of my old primal friends. To be fair, they remind me too much of how much more I need to feel but don’t have the discipline to do so. Nevertheless, they expect way too much out of an imperfect me. 

 

           Regarding PTSD, I’m going to correct myself in saying that my childhood flashbacks hadn’t begun until I had began the therapy in my advanced stages. I often obsess about the verbal and violent attacks handed down to me from my family (from past to current abuses). That is not normal. I had never done that before therapy.

 

The gates are open — OK – fine — great. But my gates have no doors on them. There is now this huge gaping wound that I have since PT tore off the scab. I am unable to heal this wound, and with each pain I encounter in my present day life, salt is poured into that wound.

 

I’m thinking that maybe I just needed someone to talk to - not PT. Keep in mind, all of this is just my personal observation, and my opinion - right or wrong.”

 

 

 

E.B.  USA, Aug 2007  

[Participant in 1990s and 2000s at Arthur Janov's Primal Center, Venice California.  Participant had no psychotic episode prior to therapy.   E.B. took no medications before reading The Primal Scream (at age 17), then did use medication before primal therapy, during and after also. Names have been changed in text. Also in the 2000 decade, I came across another similar case where temporary psychotic symptoms emerged in therapy in a patient with no history of psychosis, and who was only anxious before therapy.]