More about therapy, sects, cults, guruism…

Accounts from patients in Primal therapy at Janov's center. Thought this was interesting. The quotations are taken from this site and this one. Also see "Surviving a therapeutic cult."

And I think Miller is right concerning failures in therapy (my amateur-translation!!):

If one uncritically cling to old methods' alleged infallibility (and she includes regressive techniques here AND primal therapy) and blames the client for failures, you inevitably land in the same fairways (waters) as the sect-guru, who also promises entire liberation. Such promises only produce self-destructive dependence which stands in the way for the individual’s liberation.

See former postings on therapy abuse. I would like to write more about Miller's views on abuse in therapy (and the vicious circle of contempt)...

“Once he told one of his therapists that she seemed to be feeling angry and defensive and she angrily denied it! This reminds me of how important it is that the person who is trying to help another is honest and authentic with his or her feelings. It also reminds me that one thing people want and need is to know that someone really cares for them. They don't just want techniques.

He said that if you questioned things you would be told standard defensive replies, rather than real answers [see what Miller has written about this. How the child was met when it asked questions, wanted to know, wondered and reacted over contradictions. And when patients in therapy start to see in therapy and start to ask questions. How this can be led back to the client in a lot of ways]/…/

He said they break down your defenses but they don't really help you solve your problem or go to the real core of your problem. He said they neglect the connections between your intellect and your emotions.

There was a lot of time spent on emotional release. But not enough time was spent on understanding where the emotions came from or how to make lasting changes.

He said the therapy did help some people, but in general it was not as helpful for highly intellectual and cognitive people.

He said some people were going there for years, even in one case a man was going there for over 10 years and was still releasing his anger and was still feeling resentment from his childhood.

I asked him if he felt more compassion for children after his time there. He said no. He felt less. This was because he felt resentful that he had spent so much time there and gotten nothing out of it. He didn't want to even think about how children felt. Instead if he was around a child and he started to feel annoyed and impatient with the child, he was tempted to hit the child, just as he had been hit by his father.

I asked him if the therapy gave him any lasting skills which he has used since he left. He said that it did not. He said that in fact, some of the people seemed to be more irresponsible than when they began therapy. He said too much was attributed to early childhood experiences. Some people used what they learned to get stuck in a trap of blaming their parents.

He said they were not taught how to take responsibility for managing their feelings./…/

Antonio and some of the others there were concerned about Janov's values. It bothered him, for instance, that Janov always flew first class and lived in a multi-million dollar home in Malibu, an expensive suburb of Los Angeles. Some people actually left when they found out how Janov lived. Antonio told me about something Janov had written in his book, ‘Prisoners of Pain.’ Janov wrote that cars are really only needed for basic transportation and yet people buy expensive, gas-guzzling cars. In this way they are used to try to fill other needs, such as the need to express their individuality and level of status, power and importance. Then as I was leaving, Antonio asked me what kind of car I thought Janov's wife drove. I guessed a Mercedes or a BMW. He said, ‘Close. A Jaguar convertible.’/…/

I feel a little disillusioned to hear these reports. It reminds me that all of us who are involved in the field of emotional healthy are always vulnerable to exploiting emotionally needy people./…/

I hope this section gives people a better idea of what can go on in primal therapy, in contrast to the miracle and idolizing testimonials in primal books and websites./…/

There seems to be some confusion over the secrecy surrounding primal therapy, so I need to state the obvious to those worried about it: You are allowed to tell your story! /…/

My therapist was so mean at the end of the therapy. /…/

I can't say much about Janov himself, or whether he consciously deceived people, since I rarely met him. But he had the usual charismatic aura. Once in a post-group I spoke about my sense of lack of meaning and conviction; Janov said, out of the blue, 'Your father made you afraid of your own convictions', although Janov had no first-hand knowledge of me or my life. It sounded very impressive at the time, as if Janov were psychic, but I realize now he was simply doing the Fritz Perls thing. (The Fritz Perls thing is of 'immediate challenge', of believing so entirely in your instincts as a therapist that you couldn't be wrong). Therapists couldn't really do wrong in their own eyes because whatever they said, if it seemed to lead to any kind of emotional reaction, they were successful…/.../

I think it can help to get some people in touch with suppressed feelings (I am still grateful for that - I do occasionally cry spontaneously, which would probably not have happened without primal therapy) and to encourage straight talking, but these are not at all unique to primal therapy. I would certainly like to see some programme of research into the primal-type process. Some stories about 'mystics' or shamans (read about Jiddu Krishnamurti's 'process' and U.G. Krishnamurti's 'calamity', for example) resemble the primal account but are even more impressive when the process is spontaneous and there is no therapist guiding or benefiting from it./…/

…also there was a general lack of transparency within an organization that preaches openness and honesty.

If you did make a complaint, it was ‘your feeling’ - it's Catch 22 - the patient was never right.

The Institute and therapists didn't want to look at themselves (as people who have feelings and defenses) and you had to be 'crazy' for wanting to question them.

Questions over ethics - if the Institute has become a law unto itself - who regulates it?

Therapists are treated as 'gurus' who can do no wrong

Group bullying was witnessed with ganging-up and groups taking the side of the therapist against individuals.

Some existing patients have been in primal therapy for 20 years+ which begs a question about its efficacy./…/

Most of the discussions were either warnings or negative acting out by primal cultists. Satisfied former customers never turned up to share their success stories.... although the cultists seemed to think it was enough to say: ‘It works because I say so!’ Then someone set up an alternative discussion forum two years ago. I was still hopeful. Not anymore. It started out with good intentions but ended up with the same mixture.... No satisfied former clients, except cultists.... If any ‘post-primal’ people really do exist I doubt they would want to hang out there. However, you might be interested to read an article by a disillusioned Primal Institute therapist.../…/

The therapy should be used to ‘manage’ your feelings and learn where in the past they belong should they be ‘just a feeling’. Smart patients know when to feel and when not to in the real world. That is the key and how it should work long term./…/

I would also tell them that for this therapy to work, that you must NOT spend all your time with primal patients. How to not make the therapy your life is key. Might be necessary in the beginning stages, but I'd explain that later on that it is very important to integrate into the real world separating your life from therapy and not making them one in the same./…/

Another problem I have with primal people is that most of them think it's ‘real’ to forget their manners. You, very rarely, hear a primal patient saying, ‘What's up?’, ‘please’, ‘thank you’, ‘I'm sorry’, ‘excuse me’, ‘pardon me’, etc. It's very frustrating when I find that they have totally confused and twisted the theory of PT to suit their own agendas and needs. Primal therapy, while it does emphasize being ‘real,’ it does NOT teach one to act impolite and inconsiderate of another person's feelings. Some primal people are downright rude in the name of ‘Primal Therapy.’/…/

I'm thinking that maybe I just needed someone to talk to - not PT [Primal Therapy]./…/

And the abuse in therapy puts a whole new layer of suffering (fourth line pain!) over childhood pain – it’s like getting dental floss stuck in your teeth when you’re trying to floss.

Without evaluation from people who are independent from primal (not Janov, not therapists, not ever-hopeful patients), the primal clique can continue to define the views of anyone who disagrees as not valid./…/

Janov starts from a solid core – the importance of love and caring in infancy and childhood. But he's not the first to point this out. /…/

The problem is lack of independence....He writes books which bring him income. He runs a Center which brings him fees from patients. Not that I think he deliberately misleads, he is just very selective in what he reveals and is optimistic that his great discovery will one day be vindicated. Wishful thinking supported by self interest.”

Also see this thread about Miller's lists on the net. Which is about trolls on the net and what they creates, or can create... Maybe Miller's unawareness about these things??

Addition: Something triggered this addition.

Miller writes in the epilogue to her book “For Your Own Good”:

“Are the detecting therapy-concepts free from manipulating elements?”

No, she doesn’t think so. She writes that we are hoping we shall get help with clearing the confusion up, so we can find clarity and “get our bearings” (??), but at the same time we are hoping that what we suspect and feel yet isn’t so bad, we are hoping our illusions still are possible to use.

If we land up with a traditional therapist we will get this confirmed through some theory, in Freud’s, Jung’s, Lacan’s or any other style.

The Primary therapies don’t come with those deceptively calming interpretations. Inasmuch their concepts aren’t manipulative. But the clients aren’t protected against therapists’ manipulations. On the contrary. This must be said clearly Miller writes. The dangers for abuse are as great in primary therapies as in other therapy forms. And the damage which can be caused can reach even deeper areas of the personality and still more aggravate the earlier incurred confusion.

And I am thinking about the moderators at ourchildhood once again. A woman sent this letter from Barbara Rogers to the subscribers at ourchildhood.int recently:

“...

I have translated and am posting here a recent answer of Alice Miller to a reader's question about ‘the development of the ourchildhood forum.’ Below it, I have posted as a reminder ‘the forum's purpose’ that Bob and I have developed.
We will continue to protect this forum from confusion, arrogance, intimidation and destructive agendas,
Barbara and Bob

AM [Alice Miller]: If you want to hear my opinion, then it is this: Moderators are humans like we all and not superhuman. They cannot run an IDEAL forum that suits everyone who enters it. As humans, they can only judge SUBJECTIVELY. This is not only their right, it is their duty towards themselves to stay truthful to their feelings and to not betray them in order to please others. But I can understand that their SUBJECTIVE decisions do not suit everyone. Then those who are disappointed are fortunately free to visit other forums, which suit them better and that hopefully are also guided truthfully.

As adults we are however not reliant on changing our parents or suffering their tyranny. We have other alternatives and are free to choose. The moderator of a childhood forum is not father or mother but a human being with his/her own feelings (hopefully) who is has taken on the task to enable others, according to HIS/HER knowledge and conscience, to articulate themselves about their childhoods and thus find more clarity about it. He or she alone are responsible that confusing contributions are not posted, and they do not owe anyone an explanation for their decision because that would only increase the confusion. As all people who participate here have been harmed greatly as children, they tend to stage here their fate and to see their parents in the moderators. That goes beyond the responsibility of a moderator, he is not a therapist, does not need to give interpretations, he only creates the prerequisites, the technical platform so to speak, to TALK, to finally be able to tell the truth. And this is already very, VERY MUCH. One should highly respect this and not attempt to use blindly, by
means of the childish, unreflected blindness, innocent people as scapegoats for badly abusive parents.”

Are moderators on a forum discharged from liability? And moderators for a forum called Alice Miller’s forum don’t they have a little more responsibility than usual, with the “quality-mark” of being Alice Miller’s list? Even if they are no therapists and this is no therapy, they nevertheless easily get a parent-figure (and authority) role. And would it be wrong if they admitted to wrongdoings? Would that be a model for other on the forum to follow?

And of course they shall see so some posts aren’t posted!

Act as all who are in a position of power has to?? As I as teacher has! If I have a group of pupils/students. I have to protect the ones I am responsible for from abuse of others in the group! But of course here it is a question of young people…

And a boss at a work-place also has this responsibility.

And both the teacher and the boss have a responsibility to motivate rejections, punishments etc. not least to the one he/she rejects or punishes!?? But of course this has to have limits (which and where can of course be difficult to judge about and to draw)?

By the way, quite ironically, I wonder if the most abusive and the worst cases are treated better too many times (everywhere it's the ones that are screaming highest that are being met and being seen, being visible). And the less problematic (??) are given less efforts!??? The worst (or real) bullies one argues with much more!?? And how was it now with the Master Suppression techniques? One of those was making invisible. Yes, it was this with the Wall of Silence… A method parents used to punish a child. Not informing i what she/he had done wrong. And if she/he didn't understand what she had failed than this was (really) a proof of ones badness.

I came to think yesterday abut a woman who was subscriber at the same time as I who was really provoking. She started a hot mothering-debate which caused a storm of feelings and reactions (and here was also a man that was a bit bully-like, but his bullying was less visible right away?? Because he was more intelligent?? So had means t hide it more?).

What she (and other bullies and provokers) did was abusing those who had had real problems with their own (abusive) mothers. Maybe some provokes without being aware of it?

Why shouldn’t moderators have to motivate their decision AT ALL or ever?? I can’t really understand this. Unless there aren’t subscribers who are abusive again and again, and not possible to speak to! Of course there can be limits where no motivations or talk will change anything…

This move sounds “a bit” authoritarian, rather strengthens what I felt then!!?? They are behaving as our parents once, who didn’t have to motivate their rejections, refusals, punishments it feels to me. Or this is maybe tremendously authoritarian!??

And hasn’t Miller written that criticism and questioning always can be referred to the “earlier address” (i.e., early childhood experiences), exactly as people have written about Janov’s therapists!?? See above:

"He said too much was attributed to early childhood experiences."

If you have nothing to hide as moderator would it be any problem to (briefly) motivate a refusal, so as to avoid confusion??

But, yes, I have seen what people can write on the net!! That’s for sure. What so called trolls write! And they are usually not possible to speak to at all!!?? It looks. There truly exist provokers on the net. Maybe enjoying provoking people as much as they can?? And no motivations or talk will change them.

Is Barbara Rogers trying to grant herself (and possible co-moderators) discharge? And Miller also contributes to this of some reason? I wonder what reason... The purpose of the forum was changed during the fall 2005 when Barbara Rogers had become co-moderator... I still thinks, from what I remember, that Bob Sharf's purpose (created together with Miller?) was better...

And I come to think what a Yanis wrote in this thread:

"I was among the first people to arrive at Miller's forum. I remember the course of events. I was reminded of it because on Saturday a friend returned to me the Alice Miller mini-library she borrowed before Xmas. My friend asked what happened to the forum on Miller's website that was mentioned in 'The Truth Will Set You Free'?

I explained to her that within a few weeks it became a magnet for trolls who wanted to tell Alice Miller what was wrong with her thesis. The most common were spanking advocates ('a little slap does no harm') and those who said 'Your therapy isn't complete until you've forgiven your parents' (even if the parents deny they did anything wrong). After a while, messages like that were being posted every day, and Alice Miller was deleting them every day. These were the people who lit Miller's fuse, even before Dennis and Jim Rich arrived. I'd agree that she overreacted. I'd say she was quite naive to think that only unquestioning supporters would turn up at the forum to praise her work."