Arthur Janov (1924- ) was psychoanalytically trained as a clinical psychologist and psychiatric social worker. He had been practicing for seventeen years when a shy and withdrawn client in a group therapy session let out a piercing, primitive scream. The inhibited client experienced a sense of release and insight. This event fascinated Janov and eventually transformed his professional perspective.
He developed an approach to therapy that encourages patients to re-experience repressed painful memories from childhood. Janov calls these primal pains: they come about when a child's emotional needs repeatedly are not met. The inner suffering that results is suppressed; the pain cannot be dissipated. It takes energy to continue to block out painful feelings. The constant expenditure of energy then shows up in conscious tension. Janov came to believe that emotional problems in adults stem from their unwillingness to experience feelings that a child would find crushing but—though painful—can now be faced. When primal pain is faced, Janov claims, individuals gain a degree of freedom and maturity they could not otherwise achieve.
Janov's primal therapy is best known for the "primal scream" we mentioned above that some patients let out when they confront the pain they have suppressed for so long. Primal therapy encourages a repeated cathartic release of pent-up feelings. During the first three critical weeks of therapy (which normally cost in excess of $2,000), the primal therapist is on call twenty-four hours a day for a single patient. The patient is isolated for the first week in a hotel room, without TV, cigarettes, alcohol, sex, or companionship, and has daily therapy sessions with the therapist that last from two to three-and-a-half hours. Patients then spend six to twelve months in a primal therapy group.
Janov has been criticized for his apparent desire for public charisma and for capitalizing on advertising hype. He tends not to reveal in writing details of his procedures in therapy and will share his professional secrets only with initiates at his primal therapy institute. Comparatively few therapists have had this special training. However, many therapists offer what they claim is the equivalent of primal therapy, which they call intensive feeling therapy. They have the same format for therapy: isolation in a hotel room, three weeks' exclusive attention to each client, and the resulting high fees.
Applications of Primal Therapy
Primal therapy has been used to treat these problems:
* chronic depression and anxiety
* compulsions
* phobias
* drug addiction