The Campaigner

1940's. Some defected to the overt enemy's camp, exactly resemble zombies:
behaviorism; some sunk into eclecticism; and a large
number lit on any "humanistic" fad or gimmick that They are not moody and do not oscillate between'exappeared.
The latter crew, epitomized by R.D. Laing, tremes of feeling. All peaks have been'ironed out. And
there is no struggle. Hence, Primal people have no need
have now become even more "Pavlovian" than Pavlov. or desire to organize or join groups. They are highly
Laing, who comes straight out of the Tavistock Clinic, individualistic. If the world had been' through Primal
views the state of madness as a positive act of liberation. Therapy there would be no politics (which is only a sick
quest for power). Each person would be content to tend
His Kingsley Hall, a supposed therapeutic community in his own emotional garden.(50)
London, is an actual "house of madness." One Kingsley
Hall resident, Mary Barnes, regressed to the point of The similarities between Primal Therapy and Chinesecompletely
smearing herself and her physical style brainwashing are striking. The "patient-trainee"
surroundings with her own feces. The therapy involved? begins by writing a personal history. On the day the
The therapist sits back and, like the friendly aide to "therapy" is to begin, the patient is instructed to check
someone on LSD, guides the patient's "journey to into a hotel and spend the day before his initial session in
madness." complete isolation, without books, television or,
The central thrust of Laing and his cohorts is to worm sometimes, food or sleep.
in on the infantile ego by taking the protective persona A journalist visiting Janov's Primal Institute in Los
and chipping or in some cases axing it away. Without a Angeles describes the almost comic pathology of Primal
revolutionary alternative, i.e. a self-conscious identity, Therapy:
the persona-stripped individual has two choices: either
All kinds of semitheatrical props are used to help trigger
return to the infantile ego state, developing an even more Primal scenes. The primal Institute is well stocked with
armoured persona or a pseudo-identity persona, or teddy bears, baby bottles, cribs and other devices.
commit suicide. Punching bags and isolation chambers 'and life-size
We will examine more closely a few of these persona- photographs of patients' parents are all part of the armamentarium
of the therapy. Sometimes patients return
stripping approaches: Primal Therapy and transactional
to their childhood homes. A birth simulator, made of
group analysis, tied-together inner tubes, stands ready to expel a'patient
Primal therapy: Primal therapy is so hideous that who needs to relive the trauma of birth from its rubber
many of its patients have dropped out, charging that it womb. Periodically the Institute has Primal night at the
movies. Films like "The Yearling" or "La Strada" evoke
, was "intolerable emotional brainwashing that depends such strong feelings that it is not unusual for every
for its success upon absolute submission to a...faith member of the audience to have a Primal while the film is
healer."[48] The Primal patient is literally encouraged running. And sometimes patients and staff join in
to regress to the state of infancy: to writhe on the floor to costume parties at which all may act out fantasies.(51)
the point of convulsion, crying out, "Mommy! Daddy!". Excerpts from Janov's clinical practice vividly
The patient then lets out a piercing, deathlike scream, demonstrate how Primal Therapy sets the stage for the
This, Arthur Janov, Primal Therapy's originator, calls mind's unconscious demons to completely imprison the
the "Primal Scream." self. A patient called Phillip, who is diagnosed as a
Janov, a psychologist and psychiatric social worker, pyschopath, is a college-educated male with a history of
has picked up narrow aspects of Freudian psychology delinquency and sexual perversions:
and transformed them into a murderous sham. Janov
has taken neurosis internalized ideology, whose Janov: "What would you saytoyour mother, if you could
elimination Freud correctly recognized can only occur
talk to her right now, your real mother?" Phillip: "My
real mother?" Janov: "What would you say?" Phillip: "I
through self-awareness and defined it as "a disease of would ask her to love me."
feeling" in which self-awareness plays no role.[49]
Janov is practicing voodoo. The frenzied state into Janov: "All right; ask her. Talk to her. Mommy-- come
which he works his patients is merely the intensification on; say what you want to say." Phillip (describing his
thoughts): "I began to breathe heavy and felt the lump
, of neurosis -- the point at which all lifelong demons of stuck in my throat. I pulled hard. I felt like I was being
an individual, i.e. all the crap, illusions, fear and despair pulled apart, like I was split down the middle, and the
of the bourgeois persona, actually seize control of the two halves were pulling against each other. I was being
body, resulting in psychosis, pulled apart physically and every way. I tried to fight it.
The two parts of me were locked. 'I couldn't stop it. I
Papa Doc Duvalier, aided by Kline, came to power opened and screamed, "Mommy, Mommy!" Janov:
primarily through exploiting a similar hysteria, the "Call." Phillip: "I want her to come back." I began to
frenzied state of voodoo. Janov's post-Primal victims cry hard. It hurt. 1 choked and I gagged on my feelings. I
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