Primal Therapy Research Paper

There are many different interesting interventions of psychology. Think about all the different mental disorders people suffer from, there are all different kinds of ways to help them overcome these. The definition of psychology is “the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behavior in a given context” (Webster). One intervention that caught my eye is primal therapy. According to Psychology Today, Primal therapy is, “a form of psychotherapy that focuses on a patient's earliest emotional experiences and encourages verbal expression of childhood suffering, typically using an empty chair or other prop to represent a parent toward whom anger is directed” (psychology today). Primal therapy is very interesting

Arthur Janov wrote a book entitled primal scream, this was a book about primal therapy and how Janov believed it would work. Janov was educated at UCLA and then the Claremont Graduate School before working at a Veteran's Administration hospital and a Los Angeles Children's Hospital. He first discovered primal therapy during his own therapy, "an eerie scream welling up from the depths of a young man lying on the floor" (Janov). This is him talking about himself. According to Ryan Howes with Psychology today, “ mental illness can be eliminated by therapy that involves experiencing and expressing repressed pain from childhood. Sometimes this results in screaming, sometimes sobbing, whatever it takes to express the hurt.” (Howes). Howes also talks about how having unexpressed pain can cause a lot of damage in a human's life. He tells about how holding pain inside can cause more than anger, it can even cause physical illness such as hypertension, allergies, asthma, panic attacks, heart palpitations, ulcers, phobias, and sometimes depression . Usually within one visit to a psychiatrist who performs Primal Therapy, the patient feels results. Janov’s discovery has forced the whole field of psychology to wrestle with the significance of

The treatment is open-ended, this means that the therapist is able to treat the patient for as long as necessary. While this is being performed most of the patient's repressed feelings are restored therefore freeing them from pain of repression. Every time it let themselves reconnect to the repression and pain, it makes them feel better. They also feel better because they feel in control, they are able to control if the repression hurts them or not so they are no longer scared of it. Primal therapy literally goes back to when the trauma happened, and picks it out of the brain files so it doesn't effect them any