by Bruce Wilson<\/p>\n
Search for \u201cprimal therapy\u201d on PubMed, the US National Institute of Medicine\u2019s database of the world\u2019s medical literature, and you will a grand total of 12 papers.<\/p>\n
There is only one paper<\/a> in the 1990s: a survey that criticizes primal as one of the \u201cleast sound\u201d of mental health treatments, along with neurolinguistic programming, bioenergetics, and aversive therapy. A more recent survey<\/a> (2006) ranks \u201cprimal scream therapy\u201d as less <\/em>credible than prefrontal lobotomy, EST, NLP, craniosacral therapy, AND “dolphin-assisted \u00a0therapy for treatment of developmental disabilities.” Only slightly less credible than primal were \u201ctreatments for PTSD caused by alien abduction, past lives therapy, future lives therapy,\u201d \u201cuse of pyramids for restoration of energy,\u201d and angel therapy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Remarkably, only 4.5% of those surveyed (mostly cognitive behavioral therapists) indicated they were not<\/em> familiar with primal. In other words, more than 95% of mainstream therapists believe they know what “primal scream therapy” is and feel justified to rank it below lobotomy. Pretty sad, I\u2019d say.<\/p>\n Look elsewhere and you\u2019ll find plenty of attacks from skeptics who think the therapy has to do with screaming.<\/p>\n Before 1990, there is one small observational study<\/a> (13 patients) reporting favorable outcomes, and an EEG study<\/a> done by Erik Hoffmann<\/a>, PhD, an independent brain researcher who worked with Janov in the mid-1990s, but that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n So why the lack of interest in studying primal therapy and other deep feeling therapies? Why do skeptics smear it as \u201cwoo?\u201d I think there are several reasons, but here are eight that I will be discussing in upcoming posts:<\/p>\n 1. Outdated notions of abreaction and catharsis.<\/p>\n 2. Misunderstanding and disinformation about primal therapy<\/p>\n 3. Lack of an organized network of accredited deep feeling therapists<\/p>\n 4. Lack of scientific evidence.<\/p>\n 6. The view that regression therapies are based on false memories.<\/p>\n 7. Association with new age, supernatural or spiritualist movements.<\/p>\n 8. Misuse by untrained or unaccredited practitioners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Bruce Wilson Search for \u201cprimal therapy\u201d on PubMed, the US National Institute of Medicine\u2019s database of the world\u2019s medical literature, and you will a grand total of 12 papers. There is only one paper in the 1990s: a survey that criticizes primal as one of the \u201cleast sound\u201d of mental health treatments, along with … <\/p>\n