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 DOI: 10.1177/002216787401400404

1974 14: 49Journal of Humanistic PsychologyWalter Kaufmann

An Anatomy of the Primal Revolution  

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AN ANATOMY OF THE PRIMALREVOLUTION

WALTER KAUFMANN was born in Germany in 1933.He has a BA in sociology and a JD in law, both from theUniversity of California at Berkeley. He is an attorney andhas been active in the civil rights and peace movements.More recently, he has facilitated numerous communica-tion workshops in the Bay Area. He has studied Reichiantherapy with Philip Curcuruto and Gerald Frank. He is astaff member of the Psychological Services Center of theCollege of San Mateo and a consultant to the Center forCross Cultural Communication in Paris. He recently

coedited The American Scene: Social Problems of the Seventies and is now

completing an article on "Wilhelm Reich and the Rights of Children."

My purpose in writing this article is to evaluate Arthur Janov’s clinicalclaims and his views on psychotherapy and personality, and to relate hisideas to their historical antecedents.A detached examination of Janov and his ideas is difficult. Janov has

become a cultural hero, a guru to several hip young celebrities. His ideashave received popular attention and even acceptancc, but have not beenformally evaluated by the academic and psychiatric communities. Janov,with a Hollywood media-conscious mentality and a flair for self-advertise-ment and verbal excess, has described his therapy as &dquo;the most importantdiscovery of the twentieth century (Newsweek, April 12, 1971, p. 97).&dquo;Janov (1970) gave early copies of Primal Scream to rock superstars MickJagger and John Lennon. Lennon helped proselytise for the therapy bymaking television appearances and a hit album in which he sings the praisesof primal therapy. Primal Scream was a national best seller and set a toneboth grandiose and excessive. It was subtitled, &dquo;The Cure for Neurosis.&dquo;

Janov’s (1971) second book, The Anatomy of Mental Illness, was

&dquo;dedicated to the alleviation of the suffering of mankind.&dquo; In his mostrecent volume, The Primal Revolution (Janov, 1972), he sweeps aside allcompetitors with the claim that primal therapy &dquo;renders all other

psychologic (sic) theories obsolete and invalid [p. 19].&dquo; Throughout, hiswriting is marred by an exaggerated evangelical enthusiasm that has littlerespect for scientific or scholarly convention. Janov plays to the crowd

J . Humanistic Psychology Vol. 14, No. 4, Fall 1974

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and tends to ignore the profession. He has not published in the jouxnals.This disdain is reciprocated. Little dealing with primal therapy has

appeared in the professional literature, although discussions abound in thepopular magazines.’ 1

Janov seems to revere his concepts and habitually capitalizes the wordsprimal, pain, and primal therapy. In attempting to draw invidious

comparisons between primal therapy and other approaches, he has theethically and methodologically questionable tendency to argue by exampleand testimonial. Case histories of clients who report they have beenunsuccessfully treated in other therapies are offered as &dquo;evidence&dquo; of the

invalidity of particular approaches (Janov, 1971, pp. 180-191), whiletestimonials from clients reporting positive changes through primaltherapy are introduced as evidence of the validity of the primal approach.There are neither controls nor data giving the percentage of Janov’s (1972,pp. 233-299) client population who report similar success.

I. THEORY

Janov’s theories have a marked resemblance to those of early Freud andearly Reich. He frequently refers to both writers but not in a manner thatmakes explicit their real contribution to primal therapy. In this respect,Janov is like a midget unwilling to acknowledge that he is standing on theshoulders of two giants. The theory of personality, as distinct from Janov’srelatively imaginative therapeutic methods, contains little, if anything, notalready present in the writings of Freud and Reich. Janov (1970) admitsthat in &dquo;some respects, primal therapy has returned full circle to earlyFreud [p. 206],&dquo; but fails to comprehend either the complexity ofpsychoanalytic theory or the full measure of his indebtedness to it. Thereare numerous references to Reich, but his understanding of Reich is

incomplete and at times clearly erroneous.Like Reich, Janov understands neurosis to be more than a mental

phenomenon and stresses the crucial role the body plays in its origin andmaintenance. Neurosis is viewed as a &dquo;pathology of whole man,

physiologically and psychologically [Janov, 1972, p. 21 ] &dquo; in which thereis &dquo;a body split from its feelings [Janov, 1972, p. 44] &dquo;. Like Reich, Janov

1 To date, the only full-length article in the professional literature dealing withJanov is Charles Kelley, "Post-Primal and Genital Character. A Critique of Janov andReich," Journal of Humanistic Psychology (Fall 1972), an article originally publishedin the September 1971 issue of the British journal, Energy and Character, under thetitle, "Primal Scream and Genital Character."

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states that defenses are &dquo;psychobiologic&dquo; and not simply mental

phenomena. He acknowledges that &dquo;needs are found in the musculature,organs, and blood system [Janov, 1970, p. 62] .&dquo; Reich (1942), however,predates Janov by more than three decades in abandoning dualistic

mind-body theories and in comprehending neurosis as a &dquo;pathology of thewhole man [p. 313].&dquo; Janov misrepresents Reich when he claims thatReichian therapy is &dquo;an external physical&dquo; approach while primal therapyis an &dquo;internal psychophysical&dquo; one superior to Reichian therapy becauseit not only dissolves muscular tensions, but also gets at their source (Janov,1971, pp. 175-176). Janov (1970, p. 62; 1971, p. 177) mistakenly lumpsthe various body-oriented therapies together and presents orgone therapyas a mechanical, manipulative, and superficial technique. We are told thatReich felt &dquo;the neurosis could be significantly affected by certain exercisesor techniques designed to reduce muscle tension (1970, p. 62),&dquo; butanyone familiar with Reich knows that his approach was not exclusivelysomatic. Reich (1942) stressed the functional identity between soma andpsyche in the maintenance of neurosis and explicitly warned againstworking only with the body while ignoring the character structure or thehistoric meanings of muscular tensions. It is not permissible, he wrote, &dquo;to

exclude one form of work at the expense of the other [p. 241].&dquo; Janov(1971) attempts to further contrast and distinguish his views from Reich’swhen he writes, &dquo;the Primal view is that body armor-the tensing of themusculature-is the result of what has happened to us in life [p. 175],&dquo; yetthis is precisely what Reich (1942) believed when he stated that &dquo;everymuscular rigidity contains the history and the meaning of its origins [p.267] .&dquo;

Janov’s (1972, pp. 197-200) assumption that symptoms &dquo;tranquilizefeeling&dquo; and &dquo;absorb pain&dquo; is reminiscent of Freud’s (1933) earlyhypothesis that &dquo;symptoms are created in order to avoid outbreaks of theanxiety state [p. 84] .&dquo; Like Freud, Janov adheres to both the conflictmodel of personality and the assumption that adult neurotic behavior isderivative of the drives and needs of early childhood. For Freud,personality is the product of conflict between societal demand and

instinctual need, of the conflict between Id and Ego. Janov (1970) writes,&dquo;... neurosis [is] the synthesis of two selves, or systems in conflict [p.35].&dquo; The conflict is between a &dquo;real&dquo; and an &dquo;unreal&dquo; self. The &dquo;real

self,&dquo; says Janov (1970), is an expression of the &dquo;real needs and feelings ofthe organism [p. 24] &dquo; which are &dquo;... to be fed, keep warm and dry, togrow and develop at our own pace, to be held, and caressed and to bestimulated [p. 22] .&dquo;

&dquo;Real&dquo; needs are not &dquo;psychological.&dquo; &dquo;Psychological needs are

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neurotic because they do not serve the real requirements of the organism[Janov, 1970, p. 28].&dquo; Reich also believed that basic needs are

physiological rather than psychological and consist of the needs for

nourishment and erotic gratification, and that mental needs are derivedfrom these basic physiological ones. In Janov’s view, when the child’s basicneeds are unfulfilled, he experiences pain and attempts &dquo;instinctively&dquo; torepress both this pain and the need which gives rise to it. An &dquo;unreal selfis a facade created by the child as he comes to believe that he can neitherget his basic needs met nor be accepted as he is and must thereforeconform to parental expectations in the hope of achieving satisfaction.Stripped of Janov’s labels, these ideas resemble those of Freud. For both,the conflict is between instinctual needs and the societal and cultural

pressures (mediated through the family) which frustrate these needs. Thebasic idea that neurosis comes from unmet needs is Freudian, althoughFreud’s (1969) conception of need was more restricted when he wrote,&dquo;... people fall ill of neurosis when the possibility of satisfaction for thelibido is removed from them-they fall ill in consequence of a

frustration ... their symptoms are actually substitutes for the missingsatisfaction [p. 301 ] .&dquo; Like Freud, Janov believes that the stage on whichneurosis is enacted is set in early childhood by shattering experiences thatare neither fully experienced nor resolved. These traumata Janov labels&dquo;primal scenes,&dquo; a term taken from Freud’s (1896) early paper, &dquo;The

Aetiology of Hysteria,&dquo; in which he advanced the view, later abandoned,that the original causal trauma in hysteria was a sexual experience called&dquo;the primal scene&dquo; that occurred in the prepuberty years.

For Janov, neurosis is identical with the system of defenses thatconstitutes the unreal self whose function it is to anesthetize the neurotic

against his pain. The shift from the real to the unreal self can be

caused by a single extremely traumatic experience, a &dquo;major primalscene,&dquo; or &dquo;the accumulation of minor scenes.&dquo; &dquo;The major primal scene,&dquo;writes Janov (1970), &dquo;usually occurs between the ages of five and seven[p. 29] .&dquo;The notion of unreal self resembles Reich’s concept of &dquo;character

armor,&dquo; which he used to refer to the total constellation of attitudes andbehaviors neurotics develop to protect themselves against the threat ofexternal hurt by others and the internal threat of their repressed emotions.In describing character armor, Reich (1949) writes that it is &dquo;... as if the

affective personality put on an armor, a rigid shell on which the knocksfrom the outer world as well as the inner demands rebound [p. 310] .&dquo;

The totally defenseless person, says Janov (1970), does not require anunreal self and is &dquo;normal.&dquo; &dquo;The stronger a person’s defenses, the sicker

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he is [p. 34] .&dquo; Janov (1972) claims that his &dquo;most basic difference [p.26] &dquo; with the Freudians is that they believe the Id and the unconsciousare basically destructive and therefore defenses are required to hold themin check. Here again, Janov fails to acknowledge, perhaps even to

recognize, his indebtedness to Reich. Reich was convinced that the healthygenital character was basically &dquo;self-regulating&dquo; and that &dquo;not all that is

unconscious is anti-social.&dquo; He viewed the destructive Id described byFreud as merely a superficial layer, beneath which was a sweeter andgentler human nature. It was Reich (1942) who wrote, &dquo;Beneath these

neurotic mechanisms, behind all these dangerous, grotesque, irrational

phantasies [sic.] and impulses, I found a bit of simple, matter of fact,decent nature [p. 148] .&dquo;

Janov’s (1970) pivotal dynamic concept is repressed pain or &dquo;Primal

Pain&dquo; as he labels it. Primal pains are unmet needs and hurts which aredenied consciousness. The sum of these repressed feelings is referred to asthe &dquo;primal pool [p. 25].&dquo; Unconscious pain is the source of neurosis andtension. All neurosis is thus reduced to a single cause, repressed pain. Theexact relationship between need and pain remains ambiguous. The variousforms of neurosis, says Janov (1972, p. 240), are all symbolic ways ofacting out our unmet needs and pain. Psychosomatic symptoms associatedwith neurosis result from an &dquo;overload of pain&dquo; and function to &dquo;absorb&dquo;it (Janov, 1972 p. 197). If neurosis is a defense against repressed pain, it is

useless to deal only with surface behavior or symptoms. &dquo;Symptoms,&dquo;writes Janov (1972), &dquo;can be conditioned or punished out of existence.But Pain, the encoded physiologic personal history, will never beconditioned out of our systems [p. 31 ] .&dquo; The only way the neurotic canshatter and penetrate the unreal self is to feel the repressed pain andmethodically empty out the primal pool. Feeling pains and connectingthem to their origins Janov (1970) calls &dquo;Primals&dquo; (see pp. 35-41).

Janov (1972, p. 25) stresses that defenses must be dismantled step bystep, systematically, and in the same manner that they were originallycreated. Here again, it was Reich (1942) who pointed out that &dquo;the

structure of the neurosis corresponded to [its] development&dquo; and thatmaterial &dquo;which had been repressed latest in childhood was found to lienearest the surface [p. 121 ] .&dquo;What is a primal but an intense abreaction and catharsis? In his early

years Freud attempted to make his patients relive the pain associated withOedipal trauma, although later psychoanalysis stressed insight over

feelings.It was Reich and Perls, not Janov, who discovered the techniques for

deep emotional release that are utilized to produce primals. Janov has

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invented a new label and has given a renewed emphasis to the deepabreaction, catharsis, and emotional acting out his therapy stresses. He hasnot made an original discovery. The Reichian-oriented therapist CharlesKelley (1971) used the term &dquo;an intensive&dquo; years before Janov to describe

experiences identical to primals. Patients in Reichian and gestalt therapyhad &dquo;primals&dquo; before Janov entered the practice of psychotherapy.

Freud, unlike Janov, used a theory of energy based on a hydraulicmodel. Symptoms are seen as energized by and absorbing libido. ForFreud and Reich, libido (they differ on the nature of libido-energy) plays arole similar to the role pain plays in Janov’s system. The hydraulic modelallows for variable causation and explains the various paths that libido cantravel (such as sublimation, perversion, genitalization, or neurosis) andhow various types of interference with libido may lead to varying forms ofneurosis. Janov has a single factor theory. For him, repressed pain is thesingle force behind all forms of neurotic disturbance, and no effort is madeto explain different neurotic patterns in terms of different causes. Janov’stheory does not explain why repressed pain results in neurosis in somepersons but not in others.

Pain is Janov’s idee fire. His excessive focus on this concept makes himmyopic to its opposite, pleasure, about which he has little to say. Janov(1972) dismisses pleasure by saying that it is &dquo;the successful anesthesia ofPain [p. 67] &dquo; and that &dquo;... all suppressed feelings are painful [Janov,1970, p. 70].&dquo; Had Janov read Reich carefully, he would have realizedthat the need to repress pleasurable feelings is often more compelling thanthe need to repress painful ones. It is pleasurable sensations that are

repressed in order to avoid painful ones. Neurotics, Reich (1942, p. 39)pointed out, have an organic incapacity for pleasure, and character armornot only anesthetizes against pain but also reduces &dquo;... libidinal and

aggressive motility, and with that, capacity for pleasure and achievement(Reich, 1949, p. 310].&dquo;

In Reichian therapy there is an attempt made not only to abreact pain,but also to expand the organism’s capacity to tolerate pleasurablesensations. Body work in Reichian therapy may be quite painful (e.g.,when a spastic muscle is squeezed and manipulated by the therapist). Thepain, however, is proportionate to the amount of armoring. Once thesomatic defense or block is diminished, pleasurable sensations usuallyensue. The object is not to induce pain, but to produce a sense of

well-being. Janov does drive his clients deeply into their pain and lowerstheir tension levels, but unlike the Reichians, he fails to take the nextnecessary step and enhance their capacity for pleasure. He concerns

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himself only with part of the problem, repressed pain, and ignoresrepressed pleasure. It is instructive to contrast Janov’s descriptions ofclients writhing on the floor experiencing their deepest hurts with thedescriptions that clients in orgone therapy give of the sweet and

pleasurable streamings they experience in their bodies (Bean, 1971, pp.18-20).

II. THERAPY

Janov’s therapeutic techniques are a creative synthesis of methods takenfrom a wide range of sources-including Reichian orgone therapy, gestalt,psychodrama, and &dquo;resocialization&dquo; techniques standardly employed bywhat Goffman (1961) refers to as &dquo;total institutions.&dquo;

Janov (1972, pp. 29-32, pp. 260-350) rejects the notion of transference.The primal therapist, although directive, neither represents the realityprinciple nor interprets the client’s utterances or behavior. He feels thatsuch interpretations are only of derivatives of the unconscious. It is theunconscious material that must be felt and experienced directly by theclient. &dquo;The only psychologic truth is experienced truth,&dquo; says Janov

(1972), &dquo;... anything else is open to interpretation and thereforefalsification and misinterpretation [p. 27] .&dquo; Therapists are &dquo;interchange-able&dquo; and clients are routinely assigned to several therapists in the courseof treatment. Often therapists and clients exchange roles, and a personwho was a therapist one day may subsequently be a patient in the group.There is no taboo against socializing between clients and therapists, as it isclaimed that therapy &dquo;has nothing to do with the relationship between thetwo, only the relationship to ourselves [Janov, 1972, p. 257] .&dquo; Rogers hassimilar attitudes toward encounter groups and draws no sharp distinctionbetween the roles of facilitator and participant.

&dquo;

My hope,&dquo; writes Rogers(1970), &dquo;is gradually to become as much a participant in the groups as afacilitator[p. 45] .&dquo; Facilitator is an appropriate term for the task assignedthe primal therapist. He &dquo;facilitates&dquo; primals, he does not analyze them.

Janov (1970) states that &dquo;older persons with families are more difficult

to treat [p. 151 ] &dquo; and that the therapy is contraindicated for persons with&dquo;organic brain pathology [p. 79] .&dquo; In spite of the broad range of personswho presumably can benefit from the therapy, prospective clients gothrough an elaborate screening process which includes medical examina-tions, submission of lengthy and detailed psychological biographies, and insome cases, extended personal interviews. Those who are selected are

mailed elaborate instructions informing them that for the first three weeks

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of treatment they will be unable to work or attend school and must devotethemselves entirely to therapy. Mailed instructions inform the client thatfor 48 hours prior to therapy he must &dquo;give up all smoking anddrinking ... stop all pills four to five days before therapy ... give upcompulsive eating and snacking, biting nails, keeping busy and on the run,oversleeping, etc.&dquo; Twenty-four hours prior to his first appointment theclient checks into a hotel room located close to the therapist’s office. He isnot allowed to sleep, see friends, watch television, or make phone callsduring this time and is asked to try not to leave his hotel room until it istime for his initial visit (Janov, 1970, p. 204, pp. 422423).

During the initial three weeks, clients are seen daily on an individualbasis for several hours; the exact length of the sessions is open-ended.After the initial three-week period, clients are assigned to &dquo;post-primalgroups&dquo; composed of others who have completed the initial three weeks.The group sessions continue until the treatment is terminated, typicallyafter six to eight months.

The elaborate selection process, ritual, enforced abstinence, and

isolation that precede the initial session serve several important functions.&dquo;The aim of the isolation is to deprive the patient of all of his usual outletsfor tension, while the sleeplessness tends to weaken his remaining defenses[Janov, 1970, p. 80] .&dquo; Freud also felt that therapy is aided by deprivingpatients of their usual outlets for tension and encouraged his clients toremain celibate while in analysis. Similar rituals and techniques are

employed by all &dquo;total institutions.&dquo; The military, prisons, asylums,monasteries, and boarding schools all require the newcomer to go througha period of resocialization which involves the creation of a new socialidentity. Rituals of deprivation and isolation from the outside world areemployed which help the novitiate to identify with the new role and tochange his self-concept (Dornbush, 1955; Goffman, 1961; McCorckle,1954).When the client arrives for his first session, he is asked to talk freely and

is reinforced whenever he talks about early painful experiences.Techniques from gestalt are employed, and clients are asked to speak withand project their feelings onto parents and love objects as though theywere actually present. As clients begin to evidence deep emotion,techniques of orgone therapy are often employed and the client is

encouraged to breath deeply and fully. Reich’s concept of character armoris utilized, and a client who is &dquo;being bright, humble, polite, obsequious,hostile, dramatic-whatever the front he presents&dquo; is confronted with thedefense of his character attitudes in &dquo;an effort to get him beyond thedefense and into feeling (Janov, 1970, p. 83).&dquo;

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Finally, there is an intensive, profoundly felt outpouring of emotion&dquo;the Primal,&dquo; usually accompanied by a deep piercing scream which is

&dquo;felt all over the body&dquo; and which is both &dquo;the cause and the result of a

crumbling defense system (Janov, 1970, p. 84).&dquo; Primal therapy is the

sum of all these experiences that are required to abreact the client’s

repressed pain.In subsequent group sessions, pairs of clients and therapists are all

present, each going through the procedures described and experiencingprimals. In these sessions a wide variety of psychodramatic props, such ascribs, baby bottles, toys, dildoes, and punching bags are employed, andtherapists encourage clients to act out their &dquo;phantasies&dquo; accordingly(Janov, 1973, pp. 254-255). Both gestalt and psychodrama precededJanov in reenacting situations to create powerful emotional release. AsJanov does not believe in transference, it follows that there is no formaltermination. When the client feels he is no longer tense, has experienced allhis repressed pain through primals, and is able to contact his feelings morefully, &dquo;he simply stops coming&dquo; and therapy is completed.

Primal therapy combines the most powerful techniques developed todate for emotional release. No doubt this amalgam, when participated into the exclusion of anything else for a period of three weeks, oftenproduces intensive abreaction and catharsis and consequently leaves theclient relatively free of tension and anxiety. This, however, is not

tantamount to acknowledging Janov’s claim that he transforms neuroticsinto healthy persons.

III. RESEARCH

&dquo;Primal man is a truly new kind of person on this earth ...&dquo; who

&dquo;... should survive longer because he has rediscovered his youth [Janov,1971, p. 115].&dquo; The evidence marshalled to support this grandiose claim isextremely modest and rests on research done by Corriere and Karle on thephysiological correlates of primal therapy. The research appears as a

chapter in Janov’s (1971, pp. 215-234) second book.An experimental group of 29 subjects in their first three weeks of

primal therapy was tested before and after each therapy session for bloodpressure, pulse rate, and rectal temperature. Their brain waves were

monitored once before they embarked on the therapy and again afterthree weeks of treatment. These tests were repeated after three months.There were two control groups of 10 subjects: an active group, which didphysical exercise for one hour and a half each day, and an inactive control

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group. The exact time that elapsed between the conclusion of the exerciseor therapy and the taking of these measures, although crucial, is not

reported.Of 29 subjects in the experimental group, only the three who

previously had high blood pressure showed significant decreases in bloodpressure. Fifty-nine percent of the experimental subjects showed

significant decreases in pulse rate, and 83% registered significant decreasesin rectal temperatures. We are informed that these decreases in pulse rateand rectal temperatures constitute a &dquo;unique psychophysiological phenom-enon&dquo; as they occurred following an &dquo;active event (see Janov, 1971, pp.219-221).&dquo; Although 59% of the primal patients did register decreasedpulse rate, so did 43% of the inactive control group. No decline in pulserate was registered in the active control group who were domg &dquo;physicalexercise.&dquo; Considering the anxiety and tension clients must feel before

these sessions, it is not surprising that after the stress of the ordeal pulserates declined. Data that would enable us to determine if the pulse rates ofthese subjects were elevated prior to their therapy sessions are not given.

Eighty-three percent of the experimental subjects had significantdecreases in rectal temperatures as compared to only 19% of the inactivesubjects and none of the active ones. Again, however, there is no raw dataon the amount of the decreases. It is claimed that rectal temperature is a&dquo;stable physiological measurement of psychological tension [Janov, 1971,p. 220).&dquo; Tiefer (1972), however, points out that his conclusion is

unsupported by the cited text, which makes only one reference to

psychologically induced increases in temperature involving a single patientsuffering from &dquo;habitual hyperthermia [p. 12].&dquo; We cannot rule out thehypothesis that subjects had low-grade fevers which subsided after thethreat of the therapy had passed because we do not know what the rectaltemperatures of these subjects were prior to therapy.

The EEG data (Janov, 1971) indicated that five of the experimentalsubjects showed a considerable reduction in brain activity as reflected inlower frequency, amplitude, and greater synchronization [p. 223] &dquo; ofbrain waves. Measures taken three months later also showed slightreductions in pulse, blood pressure, and brain activity, although decreaseswere less than after individual sessions. Once again, exact figures are notgiven. Janov’s physiological measures tell us little since we do not have

comparative data on patients in other therapies.Janov’s assertions that the reported decreases in pulse, blood pressure,

and altered brain wave patterns in post-primal patients signal the advent ofa new man borders on absurdity. Physiologists have for decades reported

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that brain waves, pulse, and blood pressure can be altered by biofeedback,yoga, and other oriental disciplines, some of which are just as &dquo;activeevents&dquo; as primal therapy. Wallace and Benson (1972) report on thephysiological correlates of meditation in 36 subjects who practicedmethod of transcendental meditation recently popularized in the West

by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. These subjects, like Janov’s (1971), showed nosignificant drop in arterial blood pressure, but did manifest &dquo;the

physiological signs characteristic of a wakeful, hypometabolic state [p.87] &dquo;: reductions in oxygen consumptions, carbon dioxide elimination andthe rate and volume of respiration; a slight increase in the acidity of thearterial blood; a marked decrease in the blood-lactate level; a slowing ofthe heartbeat; a considerable increase in skin resistance and an

electroencephalogram pattern of intensification of slobv alpha waves withoccasional theta-wave activity (Wallace & Benson, 1972, p. 89). Thesemeasures, especially the decrease in blood-lactate level, are more indicativeof a decrease in tension than Janov’s are. The work of DiCara, referred toin the Wallace and Benson (1972, p. 90) article, demonstrates that

techniques of operant conditioning can also be used to alter autonomicfunctions in both animal and human subjects.

Janov has shown that primal therapy can produce a hypometabolicstate, but so can meditation, yoga (&dquo;an active event&dquo;), operantconditioning, drug therapy, and biofeedback. To equate this hypometa-bolic state with psychophysiological health is dubious.

Like Freud and Reich, Janov (1972, p. 19) employs a medical modeland says that neurosis is a &dquo;disease&dquo; characterized by the suppression offeeling, hypertension, and &dquo;the lack of proper integration of all

physiologic systems (p. 23).&dquo; Primal therapy is the &dquo;only cure&dquo; for this

&dquo;disease.&dquo; The arrogant extravagance of these assertions testifies to

Janov’s failure to appreciate the ambiguity and semantic problemsinherent in the concept of cure when applied to psychological problems.Most psychotherapists would consider Janov’s promise of a &dquo;cure&dquo;

ethically questionable (Storr, 1968, p. 57).Janov (1970) devotes considerable space to describing clients who have

&dquo;successfully&dquo; completed primal therapy and claims that they now&dquo;function in a new way,&dquo; are more &dquo;real,&dquo; and &dquo;can no longer do anythingunreal [p. 37, p. 152] .&dquo; Given Janov’s conception of neurosis as an

inability to feel, the &dquo;cured&dquo; person is now unable to be unreal because hehas gotten in touch with his &dquo;real&dquo; feelings. The semantic problems are asnumerous as the methodological ones. The concepts &dquo;real&dquo; and &dquo;unreal&dquo;are vague and subjective. What reliable measures do we have to distinguish

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&dquo;real&dquo; from &dquo;unreal&dquo; feelings? What is &dquo;unreal&dquo; activity as distinguishedfrom &dquo;real&dquo; activity? When one looks at Janov’s sketchy descriptions ofpost-primal clients, patterns of behavior and attitude emerge that are

consistent with the hypometabolic state previously described. Is Janov

describing &dquo;real&dquo; and &dquo;cured&dquo; persons? With a different set of assumptionsabout the nature of mental health, one can argue that these descriptionsare of persons in a hypometabolic and parasympatheticotonic state wholack motivation, energy, and are generally too debilitated and tension freeto actively engage others and the environment.

Janov (1970) tells us that the post-primal man has &dquo;...lessdrive ... does less in terms of struggle ... but what they do is somethingreal [p. 153].&dquo; There is a discussion of the pyschotherapist and theswimming pool cleaner who are now unable to work as many hours, of theacademic psychologist who stopped delivering professional papers (p.152-154), and of the PhD candidate in English who now only reads fairytales (Janov, 1971, p. 213). &dquo;Natural man,&dquo; says Janov (1971), &dquo;is

nonindustrial, noncompulsive and nondriving, ’unambitious’ in the

neurotic sense, and simple [p. 213].&dquo; We are informed that &dquo;persons whofinish primal therapy never report [the] peak experiences of whichMaslow speaks [Janov, 1972, p. 225].&dquo;

In a follow-up study (Janov, 1971, p. 202-215) of 25 clients who hadbeen in primal therapy five or more months, a 14-item questionnaire wasadministered. In discussing Item 9, &dquo;How has your behavior and life stylechanged?&dquo; Janov (1971) reports that &dquo;almost all respondents indicate4that they no longer engaged in struggles anywhere&dquo; and that &dquo;... thosewho were politically active are far less so now ... [p. 208]&dquo; Thestatement occurring with second most frequency was, &dquo;My life is simpler, Ido less, go less, want less, talk less; everything is less [p. 209] .&dquo;Responding to Item 13, &dquo;Describe your sex life,&dquo; &dquo;nearly all respondentssaid that they had much less sex than before [p. 212].&dquo; Janov offers thefollowing explanation: &dquo;When tension is cleared out of the system and nolonger contaminates sex need, there is little doubt that there is a drop insexual interest [p. 212] -an interesting hypothesis, but one for which noindependent proof is given. In discussing Item 14, &dquo;Describe your

everyday life (job, family, kids, etc.),&dquo; Janov (p. 213) writes that &dquo;in termsof jobs, they usually decide that it doesn’t matter what one does as long asone has oneself, so they don’t feel committed on a life-long basis to anyjob.&dquo;

I differ with Janov’s assumption that a person is &dquo;cured&dquo; when he istension free to the extent that he is significantly less interested in sex,work, and activity in general. Many neurotics engage in a wide range of

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compulsive and compensatory activity, but this does not imply that healthis an apathetic and enervated state. When the life energy of the person isreleased and flows freely, the result is not apathy. &dquo;Health&dquo; is a difficult

and value-laden concept. In my view, however, it implies both the capacityof the organism to tolerate the buildup of tension and the capacity todischarge tension. An enervated state that does not enable tension to buildalso deprives one of the euphoria that comes with adequate discharge andrelease. There is a famous Zen saying, &dquo;Before Satori you chop wood andcarry water, after Satori you chop wood and carry water.&dquo;

Janov’s value preference for passivity, contentment, and calm over adynamic energetic involvement with the world, his anti-Faustian image ofthe post-primal natural man is but one of several competing Utopianconceptions of &dquo;natural man.&dquo; Post-primal man is similar to Reich’s

&dquo;genital character&dquo; in that he has a &dquo;simple and matter of course ... atti-tude toward the world, toward people, toward one’s own experience[Reich, 1942, p. 158] &dquo; and has &dquo;eliminated the struggle against an instinctwhich though repressed constantly kept pressing forward [p. 154] .&dquo; Incontrast to post-primal man, the genital character evidences a &dquo;... growingabsorption in some social activity [Reich, 1942, p. 150].&dquo; He is activelyinvolved in the world and capable of bringing about social change andcontributing to the development of a social order more in keeping with hisown needs. Reich, along with such other left-wing Freudians as Frommand Marcuse (Robinson, 1969), attempted a synthesis between Marxistand Freudian thought. A highly individualistic person would fall short ofReich’s ideal for human nature. I agree with Keen’s (1972) observationsthat:

Notions of health and cure involve matters of value and taste. The

placid, nonstruggling, highly individualistic person Janov idealizes asthe cured patient would be considered brainwashed, bourgeois andalienated by any of the radical therapists whose idea of a healthyperson has been colored by the communal vision of the Christian andMarxist traditions [p. 88].

Perhaps, primal therapy does change clients in dramatic ways. Whetherthe change is in a healthy direction is open to question.

REFERENCES

BEAN, O. Me and the orgone. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1971.DORNBUSH, S. The military academy as an assimilating institution. Social

Forces, May 1955.

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FREUD, S. The aetiology of hysteria. In Collected papers. Vol. I. New York:

Basic Books, 1896.FREUD, S. New introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. New York. Norton,

1933.

FREUD, S. A general introduction to psycho-analysis. New York: Simon andSchuster, 1969.

GOFFMAN, E. Characteristics of total institutions. In Asylums. New York:Anchor Books, 1961.

JANOV, A. The primal scream. New York: G. P. Putman’s Sons, 1970.JANOV, A. The anatomy of mental illness. New York: G. P. Putman’s Sons,

1971.

JANOV, A. The primal revolution. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972.KEEN, S. Janov and primal therapy: The screaming cure. In Psychology

Today, February 1972.

KELLEY, C. Wilhelm Reich and the bioenergetics of feeling. San Rafael: BigSur Recordings, 1971. (Audio tape)

KELLEY, C. Post-primal and genital character: A critique of Janov and Reich.Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 1972, 12, 61-73.

MCCORCLE, L., & KORN, R. Resocialization within walls. The annals ofthe American Academy of Political and Social Science, May 1954.

REICH, W. The function of the orgasm. New York: The Noonday Press, 1942.REICH, W. Character analysis. New York: The Noonday Press, 1949.

REICH, W. Selected writings. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1960.

ROBINSON, P. The Freudian left. New York: Harper and Row, 1969.ROGERS, C. Can I be a facilitative person in a group? In C. Rogers, CarlRogers on encounter groups. New York: Harper and Row, 1970.

STORR, A. The concept of cure. In Charles Rycroft et al., Psychoanalysis ob-served. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1968.

TIEFER, L. Review: The anatomy of mental illness. In Psychology Today,June 1972, 10 12.

WALLACE, R., & BENSON. H. The physiology of meditation. Scientific Ameri-can, February 1972, pp. 85-90.

Reprint requests: Walter Kaufmann, 342 29th Avenue, San Francisco, California94121.

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