TECHNIQUES OF PRIMAL INTEGRATION
A. Primal Abreaction
However, until a client has reached that point where he has learned the art of tracking his own feelings, he will need help. I do not mean to imply that an "experienced primaller" never needs help. New areas of exploration especially those which are extremely threatening, may require some very basic help, but this is the exception rather than the rule.
A typical primal dialogue between a therapist -and a client, where the therapist is helping his client to track a feeling back to its primal source, may go as follows:
Therapist: What are you feeling now?
Client: Nothing. There is so damn much noise in this room (the group primalling), that I can't feel anything.
Therapist: Do you want to tell them to shut up?
Client: No, I can't tell them that. They won't listen to me anyway.
Therapist: Who won't?
Client: Nobody.
Therapist: Tell them that. See what happens.
Client: I want to tell you all to shut up, but you won't listen! You never listen! Shut up! (The client is getting progressively louder). Shut up! (He continues for some time. I encourage him to let his body go with it - he begins to pound his hands on the mat).
Therapist: To whom are you talking?
Client: My father. He always knew just what to say, but he would never listen. I want to gag him so he'll shut up and hear what I have to say! I want him to hear me, the bastard!
Therapist: Go ahead. (I give him a styrofoam plastic dummy and a towel and I encourage him to go ahead and gag his father and then to tell his father what he felt his father had never listened to).
Client: Listen to me, Dad. I know I am only a little boy and I don't always say everything right, but please listen to me anyway! (His voice starts to break, but he slows his breathing - a very common defense against deep feeling. I encourage him to breathe deeply). Please listen to me, Dad! (He begins to cry).
At this point, he is well into his feeling. As long as he continues to breathe deeply, he will stay with it until his body and emotions feel a sense of closure, release and calmness. In a group setting, I will usually ask another member to sit by him for the purpose of support and to remind him to breathe if he appears to once again be cutting off the feeling. The important thing is that the rest is automatic. It can go in any direction. At the end of the session, he will be asked to share his experience with the group.
The only difference between this situation in a group and in an individual session is the consistency of the presence of the therapist. In a group, once beyond the need for suggestions, I will move on to another member needing help. We have found that once he is into a primal experience, a person does not care who is sitting with him as long as he feels safe.
The most common primal technique is to discourage any talking whatsoever and simply encourage the client to make sounds, breathe deeply, and move his body freely. This non-verbal variation of the preceding example of tracking feelings is most commonly used with people who cannot put their feelings into words. Often this becomes a pre-verbal experience such as the re-experiencing of a birth trauma. The words may then come later as the client discovers that his initial inability to verbalize was another mere defense. I believe that this freedom not to verbalize helps clients go beyond psychoanalysis, which usually deals only with that which can be talked about.
Many clients who find that using words takes them out of their feelings prefer to begin non-verbally until their primal reaches an affective level beyond the defense of intellectualization.
The aspect of our specific approach to primal, which makes it eclectic, is our freedom to draw upon an infinite number of theories and schools of psychotherapeutic approaches to facilitate abreaction. It should be clear that the goal of any techniques used to facilitate primal abreaction is to help a client only to the point at which abreaction is taking place. When this goal is accomplished, and the client is primalling, any "help" other than simply giving support or help to re-intensify the feeling if he becomes stuck and clearly asks for help .(verbally or non-verbally) can be considered acting-out counter-transference on a very vulnerable person. This is dangerous and can be very destructive to a client, especially if he is pushed into material that he is not yet ready to deal with.47
During Primal Integration, we show clients that they have within themselves the inter-defenses necessary to protect themselves from "going too far" on their own. A rule of thumb is to do nothing when in doubt. We would rather a person be unable to deal with a particular feeling at a particular time than to risk the possible adverse effects of disorientation from going too far.
I personally limit my work to relatively normal (functional), as clinically defined, adults (who can go through the process in weekly sessions). Persons who wish three week intensive individual sessions and those who display very severe signs of overt psychopathological disturbances are referred elsewhere.
In addition to weekly (one to two hour) individual sessions, I lead two types of groups: weekly ongoing groups and marathons. Prior to being accepted into either type of group, a participant is given a detailed application and a personal interview in order to determine mutual compatibility. During this interview, the participant discusses his current life situation as well as his past history and his reasons for seeking therapy. He is given a printed outline covering such issues as what to expect to happen in the group, guidelines and safety measures, suggestions for going into primals, working in pairs and suggested reading. Assuming that we have answered each other's questions and are satisfied that the group experience is the next step, he is admitted to the group after signing a participation agreement. The duration of the process is each individual's own decision.
The following is the introductory literature I use to orient prospective participants in primal integration groups.
Primal Integration is experiencing and understanding the path we chose as children leading us to our current life situation. Connecting the here-and-now with our past is a total thought-feeling process.
These groups will provide you the supportive environment necessary to relive primal experiences, establish their effect in here-and-now life situations, and help you provide alternatives to unrewarding beliefs, behaviors and attitudes. This integrative process often resolves the inner conflicts which stifle growth-producing energy and block the awareness of one's feelings.
In order to get the most of this intensive process, we offer the following suggestions.
a. What feelings did you explore?
b. What does it mean to you in your present life?
(That is, "What is the connection between the
past and the present?").
c. What is your next step? (Both primally and in
your present life inside and outside the group).
It is important that you trust your fantasies and intuition when the cognition of experienced feelings seem difficult. The final portion of each session is devoted to this integration process.
Upon entering this group, we ask that the following guidelines and safety measure be observed.
The Center For the Whole Person's Philadelphia Branch offers a primal marathon nearly every month They provide the advantage of allowing deep exploration for a longer peri;d of continuous time than do weekly groups.
We offer two types:
The latter are overnight groups where meals and sleeping accommodations re provided as well as the Center's body-temperature pool designed for the cilitating of primal and peak experiences. Weekend groups have five sessions.
Marathons generally serve four purposes:
Marathon members may come to a weekly session, should they feel the need d if there is an opening on any given night, provided that they call ahead time.
My weeklv ongoing groups are based on a model developed by David Freundlich.48 They meet on a weekday evening from 7:00 P.M. to 11:OO P.M. They are limited to ten people who contract to attend a minimum of four consecutive sessions. During the first half hour, each member states briefly what he is feeling presently and what he, tentatively, feels he would like to work on. This period also allows new members to introduce themselves and others to share any significant happenings of the week. We keep the talking to a minimum, as the object is now to let the feelings build rather than talk them away.
The next two and one half hours are devoted to primal exploration, either individually or in pairs. We dim the light, in order to allow group members to get in touch with themselves and keep distractions to a minimum. Those who are ready to work simply lie down and get started. Those who are not yet ready to work may sit by a working member to give support. When a non-working member is ready, he may go into this own material at any time. My co-leader, usuallv of the opposite sex, and I circulate about the room and help wherever we are needed. Sometimes all ten members are going at once. It is rare to have less than half into a primal at any time. As members come out of their own primals, they are encouraged to be silent, to integrate whatever they have experienced, and then to help another member.
Two to three hours later, we turn the lights back up and spend the final hour integrating, summarizing, and discussing each member's experience. Each group member has a chance to speak and obtain feedback, if he so desires.
My Primal Integration marathons are similar to the weekly group in every way, except for the time and frequency. They are held about once a month and serve four distinct purposes. First, they serve as an alternative to those who cannot come weekly in the evening because of distance or other commitments such as work or school. Second, they provide regular group members the opportunity to work through fully something for which there was not sufficient time in the weekly sessions. My marathons range from eight hours (10:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M.) on a Saturday to an entire weekend (8:30 P.M. Friday to 2:00 P.M. Sunday) with breaks for meals and sleeping. Since there is no need to "pull yourself together" to go home after four hours as in the evening groups, much deeper exploration is possible. Third, they provide those who are new to the primal process - and feel they need it - an alternative to Janov's three week intensive. It is virtually impossible not to break down some defenses during a marathon because the intensity increases as the day or weekend progresses.
A primal marathon provides nearly half as many hours of working time as Janov's three week intensive and does not require the mass financial output. Finally, marathons offer those who have grown to find a weekly group unnecessary an opportunity to return when they feel the need for further primal experiences without making a long term commitment.
A primal experience has little, if any, therapeutic value unless it is
thoroughly integrated and internalized by the client. I believe that one can
only interpret his own primal experiences. As we use abreaction techniques
to help a client find his own way to his deepest feelings, we use integration
techniques only to help a client find his own answers.
One can be considered to have completed a primal experience if he can answer, to his own satisfaction, the following three questions49:
If a client is having difficulties integrating, the group and therapists can help by giving support, observations, honest feedback, and reflections which come out of their own feelings for the period. Never do we consciously analyze, interpret, make judgments or give advice. Even if the answer is frustratingly obvious, it doesn't count until it comes from the client himself. We rely very heavily on the includences of Carl Rogers and Client Centered Therapy in providing each client the opportunity to discover for himself.50
Another important device we use in helping the integration process is the encounter. I believe that all changes carry with them an element of risk. In creating an atmosphere where it is safe to experiment with new behavior, one can often acquire the self-confidence necessary to take similar risks in the outside "real" world.51. As an example of how risk is explored within the group, a client re-lived some very painful experiences concerning his present inability to ask favors of others. He connected that with his parents always seeming annoyed when he asked for attention or help. We suggested that he go around the group asking for something from each member. At the beginning, he found this extremely difficult; however, by the time he got around the group, he felt much more at ease. This helped him to better deal with similar situations outside the group. He learned he could ask without annoying those close to him.
Group members are also encouraged to deal with "here-and-now" feeling as as they arise among themselves and with the therapists. It is very important to the primal process that the air is clear within the group. We provide ample time, both before and after the primal work, for them to deal with any such issues.
I can sum up the primal process by saying that all feelings are part of being human. Neurosis is formed when a negative judgment is imposed on one's feelings. To discard neurosis, one must discover that all feelings are OK. One arrives at negative conclusions in his own unique way and can only arrive at his positive conclusions in his own unique way. That is what Primal Integration is all about.
The changes one may go through in Primal Integration are irreversible. Reliving primal experiences is similar to walking through a dark tunnel. One has no idea where the tunnel will lead. There are only two certainties: one has been there at least once before in one's life and, once one sees the light, one will never again want to back into the darkness. Once out in the light, the client may be able to resolve his internal conflicts, but his external problems may be just beginning. This is what makes the primal process most difficult - the very fact that a person must now cope with the rest of the world a world which cannot relate to the deep feelinqs which he has experienced a world of friends, relatives, spouse, superiors, subordinates and associates, all of whom still have the same expectations of this person whose needs and values are in the process of positive, yet drastic change. If he is ready to face this possible alienation, he is well on his way. If not, less painful alternatives do exist.
Primal Integration leads to a new way of life. It means being, feeling, and accepting one's self. It also means allowing the same from those with whom one has contact. I believe this state of being is within all of us, just waiting to be discovered. Along the path, there are many high hurdles to be jumped. One's ability to feel-the joy, pleasure and love that life has to offer, depends on one's ability to feel his pain which is blocking it. It is the sum of all of these feelings that adds up to a Whole Person.
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47Janov, op. cit., pp. 247-248
48Freudlich, Innovations in the Use of Time in Psychotherapy Groups, Center for the Whole Person, New York, 1973
49Freudlich, The Four Phases of Primal, New York, Center for the Whole Person, New York, 1974
50Rogers, op. cit.
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