Doyle P. Henderson

author of

"Amazing New Truths
About Your Emotions" & Panacea! Self-Regressive Computer Software


"You can guess what happened to people long ago, if you'll justlisten to what they say they felt during the past week." -- Doyle P. Henderson


Most of us think of J. Konrad Stettbacher as the first who wrote a book with instructions on how to conduct one's own regressive therapy. But long before Stettbacher and before Jean Jenson and Paul Vereshack, Doyle P. Henderson had written, Amazing Truths About Your Emotions. He originally made his book available as shareware on many computer bulletin boards. While not touted as a do-it-yourself therapy project, the instructions were in his book and available for many to read and use.

But that was then. Since the initial publication of his book in 1990, Henderson. a retired aerospace engineer, in 1993 developed and refined a computer program which he calls Panacea! (love that name!). He claims that with Panacea!, a computer and some privacy, one may begin tracing the origin of and eventually eliminating from one's life, all those uncomfortable, unwanted feelings such as inordinate guilt, jealousy, anger, inferiority, and many psychosomatic conditions such as headaches, stomach pains, asthma, etc. which have plagued mankind since our beginnings.

Since the inception of the Primal Psychotherapy Page, I have offered the three sections of chapter six from Amazing New Truths About Your Emotions in compressed format for downloading. (Check the bottom of the PPP homepage.)

Earlier this month, I became curious to learn if there was other information on the web about Doyle Henderson's book and its author. The discovery of Henderson's large website on the net inspired me to re-read his book and I contacted its author to see if he would be agreeable to an interview. Here it is. -- John A. Speyrer, editor, The Primal Psychotherapy Page

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PPP: Doyle, in the introduction to the interview, I mention anumber of other authors, who in their books have discussedtechniques one can use to trace feelings to their peri-natal,infantile and childhood origins.

In a sense, these authors could be considered as your competitors,but, I feel certain that you have read their books to see what ideas theydeveloped. What is your opinion of their works?

DPH: Well, John, I may surprise you by saying that I really haven't studied their works-- or paid much attention to other self-help programs after noting that most of the ones I looked at were considered to be therapies, and were attempting to fix some defect, and/or used some form of hypnosis or memory enhancement to regress the subject to younger ages. I did buy and read a lot of books back in the seventies trying to find some information about emotional memories... But, every book I found on the human memories only dealt with visual and aural memories. So, I gradually presumed that what I was doing was different and kept working on my concepts and applications.

PPP: You mentioned in your book that you met Arthur Janov and was presentat one of his demonstrations, and that you felt that hisexplanation for the origin of "all neuroses" was seriouslyflawed. What do you believe is Janov's error?

DPH: I was very impressed with Janov's work; but, it seemed to me he hastily drew at least two bad conclusions:

First, he accepted the medical idea that "therapy" was required to "treat/cure sick patients" of mental "diseases"-- called "neuroses" in those days. My work demonstrates that most so-called abnormal emotions (including all neuroses) have the same natural cause as do normal emotions, and are not due to mental illnesses or diseases; but, to the universally manifested phenomena of the re-creation of early-life body-states from specific real memories. After about age five, a significant transition in the way that physical memories are stored occurs... and that capability to store body states (often called emotions) ends forever. But, those states stored during infancy and the first several years of childhood continue to be accessible during the brain's routine searches for matching and/or related experiences. Because the brain has no sense-of-touch receptors, not even any pain receptors, and the conceptual memories of images, sounds, and ideas become inaccessible (childhood amnesia), then the brain actuates specific glands and muscles to present the recalled states "out there in the body." So, Janov supported the medical model and I repudiate it.

Second, he also had insisted (in his book, The Primal Scream), that the cause of ALL neuroses was the failure of the mother/father to fulfill the biological needs of the child, resulting in a conflict and a split between wants and needs. In my opinion, that conclusion was premature and has proved to be seriously flawed by other observations and experimentation. In developing his ideas, it seems to me that Janov failed to accommodate the facts that the brain must re-create not only body feelings, but, also complex, yet organized actions, like screaming, walking, and talking-- involuntarily, from specific, stored physical memories in order to manifest such previously experienced actions.

It seems to me that he failed to consider how such actions, and emotional body states such as sweaty palms, trembling, screaming, crying, nausea, vomiting, pressure and tension, and all the various pains associated with fear, anger, sadness, depression, hopelessness, guilt, shame, jealousy, and grief, can be presented anywhere else but in the body-- given the brain cannot feel anything.

He seems to have ignored the fact that all physical body states first experienced and stored in memory after about age five cannot be re-created "out there in the body" and are always presented conceptually, as images, sounds, words, ideas, or thoughts alone.... entirely within the brain. These facts and other related ones make his presumptions about the cause and character of neuroses highly questionable, in my view.

PPP: The case studies which you use in your book to explaintechniques for tracing feelings to their origin seem much moremanipulative (by the session director) than my experiences inprimal therapy and holotropic breathwork. Doyle, are the casespresented typical of the work done by the session director in later sessions or are the examples only illustrative of themethod used?

DPH: The three chapters in my first book (1990) describe a 12-step process to be used by the Subject and the Session Director. It is a tutorial, and is not a case study although the use of names to denote who is speaking to whom may make it seem as if it is a case history. Now, John, after publishing that large book, several interested people asked if it was possible to do the tracing work ALONE citing difficulty in finding someone to learn how to be their Session Director.

After working for several additional years with deaf people and some elderly folks, I determined that people could do the work with their eyes open (to read my lips) and while sitting in a chair (due to bad backs.)

Because the program makes no diagnoses, doesn't label any disorders, and needs no knowledge of psychology, and is truly a methodological sequence applicable to the eradication of whatever unwanted states the user wants to work with, I believed I could mechanize the tracing application.... using the personal computer as the machine. By 1993, I had Version 1.0 of what I called PANACEA!, the world's first and only software which could eradicate selected unwanted emotions-- while sitting at a computer-- alone and in private.

Of course, the mental health community knew nothing about all this as my claims and press releases were ignored as probably a scam... I went on and refined PANACEA! and released Version 1.1 in 1995.

So, John, the manipulative nature of the Session Director is entirely replaced by a computer screen which simply gives step-by-step instructions to the user based on personal inputs and keyboard responses made when the user is ready to proceed to the next step in the process. People can do the work alone and with complete privacy at home.

The computer is endlessly patient, and yet, the program is ideally suited for use in the clinical environment. Subjects relax and close their eyes while sitting in a comfortable recliner chair. The professional clinician, assisted by running the program silently on a notebook/laptop computer, directs his subject and makes appropriate entries at the keyboard. An experienced clinician's expertise can be invaluable.

Regarding real cases, we have satisfied customers in 31 foreign countries now and in almost every state/province here in the USA and Canada... Many of our customers have come to us from your Website... and you have our thanks for that.

Our Website-1.com also has the real names and current e-mail addresses of several enthusiastic users who have volunteered to respond to inquiries from people who are understandably skeptical of our extraordinary claims. There are many questions, reports, and my responses from various site visitors and customers also on-line at our website-1.com

PPP: Dr Arthur Janov, the discoverer of primal therapy,originally wrote quite optimistically about the ease ofcuring alcoholics, drug addicts. and homosexuals. He has notchanged his mind that these conditions are the result of trauma, but as far as I know, believes that the goal of "cure"for these problems is difficult and long, and one fraughtwith many failures. When you were a practicing session director,did such conditions pose special problems for both you andyour subject?

DPH: We are continually harassed today by various people who ridicule and/or damn us for claiming that after using PANACEA! properly, physically detoxified alcoholics can drink again-- like other non-alcoholics. We have a number of successes which have corroborated our claims and ideas.

Very simply, we maintain that the AMA is wrong. Alcoholism is NOT a disease and results from the abuse of addictive substances to change how the person feels... When detoxified alcoholics drink again, they do so to get rid of some very unpleasant (painful) feelings or emotions. They don't drink because they're thirsty or like the taste. So, when they use PANACEA!, they rid themselves of those personal painful feelings, and then they have no problem with alcohol after being detoxified and free from the cravings caused by their physical addiction.

We have also used the program with some noted success at a local state hospital some years ago working with randomly selected hard-core drug addicts. We were there six months and just as we were gaining notice by the MD Psychiatrist in charge, a jealous member of the staff had us charged with practicing medicine without a license when we started working with some members of his private staff who had observed our successes. We made the mistake of working with them after hours at our business offices. So, Dr. Janov's remarks about the difficulties of working with alcoholics and drug abusers were right on point.

However, we routinely have worked with homosexuals. In the case of males who wish to become heterosexual, we suggest they use our program (with privacy) to get rid of their dislike/revulsion for women-- rather than attempt the precarious job of altering their preference for males. That's because penile erections, those manifested by sight, sound, or thought alone-- are naturally re-created states from infantile experiences. Homosexuality, if not the result of genetic flaw or subtle brain chemistry, seems to result from associating early life pains as being caused by some member(s) of the opposite sex.

(Our website-1.com has three chapters covering how early sexual and other experiences affect human sexuality.) Many cases we have worked with show us that female homosexuality (Lesbianism) results from as few as one painful event experienced prior to about age five. A number of scenarios are discussed on-line at our site.

Of great interest is our discovery that millions of young female babies and girls have had their sexuality permanently altered by PLEASANT and painless events which I call: "The Sex Act With No Name." Women who can become sexually aroused, and especially those who can orgasm from sight, sounds, or thought alone.... yes, there are many such women out there... all experienced genital manipulation prior to age five.... Those who did not will never ever be able to become sexually aroused by thought alone.... no matter how orgasmic or sexually active they become...

So, homosexuality is readily dealt with by PANACEA! if the person can overcome their current beliefs that the reason they have always felt this orientation is genetic.

PPP: We can't end this interview without some questions onbirth trauma, since I've been re-experiencing my birth, moreor less continuously, for the last two decades! You mentionedto me that regressions to birth wererelatively common in your experience. Just how prevalent (percentage-wise) was the re-living of aspects of one's birthfor subjects, during sessions which you acted as sessiondirector? Did some particular psychosomatic illnesses giveyou a premonition that its origins lay in the subject's birthtrauma? How can a traumatic birth result in a subject's futuresex problem? Has the uncovering of birth trauma diminishedwith use of Panacea? I guess what I'm really getting at thatlast question is: Is it preferable to have a session with adirector present, and might the use of Panacea! be a compromise?

DPH: Well, John, some people are awake prior to and during their journey down the birth canal. And, others are "out of it," comatose, etc. Some births are easy and relatively pain free-- yet the person may experience natural feelings of being constrained, pressured, crushed, and other sensations, including rapid cooling upon entry into the delivery room. Later in life, these feelings, all stored in a very functional memory of physical states (probably in the amygdala), get re-created from time to time during searches for information--- and trapped sensations, and fears which are just re-created pains, get associated with small rooms, closets, elevators, etc.

Also, the mother may secrete hormones prior to birth.... If she is upset, her adrenaline will go right through the placenta, the umbilical, and into the fetus... giving it fear or excited states which are stored for future use.... by their re-creation when the brain searches for the meaning of what is happening-- being seen, heard, or being thought about...

So birth trauma really may begin well before birth. Fetuses are ready to feel body sensations and store those states in memory months before birth. I note that a "premie", born a month early, may have hyaline membrane lung problems, but none of them have to wait a month before they can feel what's happening to them, to become hungry, cold, warm, or feel pain and discomfort. Nor do they have to wait to see or hear stuff that is going on after they are born.

All that perceived stuff is stored in memory in terms of body states, not in terms of concepts, images, sounds, words, etc. So, an image brings up a body state and a feeling! Later, as the brain can't handle all the images and words, it seems that the "data storage system" changes and no longer stores stuff so that feelings are manifested from memory... This transition seems to be complete around kindergarten age... five.

Autistic people seem to be precocious in this regard. Their storage of experienced body states stops as early as age one or two. That gives people the impression they are backward because they don't store all the states which other people do and which are the cause of normal/abnormal emotions. Also, they may not be able to store the phonemes necessary to speech. That results in speaking being very difficult for them.... just like it is difficult for an Oriental to say: "fried rice" saying "flied lice" instead. That's because few Orientals learn to speak the RRRRRRR sound and cannot involuntarily re-create it, even later in life, as can those of us who learned to do that prior to age five.

Well, I got off the subject a bit, which I am likely to do. But, our computer program, PANACEA! routinely takes its users back to birth, and before.

While the origins of selected unwanted states (usually with names of fear, anger, sadness, grief, depression, hopelessness, panic, etc.) may have occurred at any age below about kindergarten age, even before birth, the process assures that the tracing work, which does not require any hypnosis or other memory enhancement, will find and eradicate the original-- no matter what age it happened.

Because the program can be readily used again and again, we recommend every user examine pre-birth periods, as well as the birth itself, and every moment involved in the storage of unwanted body states/emotions.

Any body state, pleasureful or painful, stored during infancy and/or early childhood, can be re-created when recalled by the brain. And, we note that any re-creatable state can ultimately become combined with any other such state.... and with any "person, place, or thing-- and that includes ideas, and thoughts."

Now, that means that even feelings experienced during birth can later become associated with sexuality.... or whatever.... To keep interest in this long response, consider that a four-year old girl is subjected to forced oral copulation. Later in life, she will dislike being French-kissed and may vomit and hyperventilate under certain circumstances. She also may have vomited when ill with colic at age one month. All these events are re-creatable throughout her life.... unless she uses PANACEA! to eradicate them. It's all explained to your satisfaction, I hope, on-line at our Website-1.com

Doyle P. Henderson
(April 4, 1998)

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