by Peter Prontzos<\/p>\n
Dear Editor,<\/p>\n
There are a number of serious problems with your characterization of primal therapy, but I will discuss only the most\u00a0serious one. The author claims that a “major flaw” with primal “is that studies have cast\u00a0doubt on the existence of deeply repressed memories.” \u00a0The truth is the exact opposite.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For instance, Louis Cozolino, Professor of Psychology at Pepperdine has\u00a0written, in his brilliant, “The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy,” that\u00a0psychologists recognize two systems of memory, explicit and implicit.\u00a0Explicit memory, according to Cozolino “describes conscious learning and\u00a0memory,” while implicit memory “is reflected in unconscious patterns of\u00a0learning stored in hidden layers of neural processing.”\u00a0Psychodynamic approaches, such as primal therapy, are about the “exploration\u00a0and uncovering of this unconscious.”<\/span><\/p>\n Both Cozolino and Arthur Janov, the founder of primal therapy, agree that\u00a0early traumas can be “imprinted in the human brain by shaping the child’s neural <\/span>networks.”<\/span><\/p>\n Most psychotherapists also agree that because of the brain’s neuroplasticity,\u00a0it is possible to heal many of those old traumas by bringing them to <\/span>consciousness in a supportive situation.<\/span><\/p>\n Moreover, Janov was a pioneer in recognizing the importance of trauma in\u00a0infants and even in the womb. <\/span>The article is a very sloppy piece of work, which shows no understanding or <\/span>investigation of the science of psychotherapy.\u00a0 It does your readers a <\/span>disservice by relying on old stereotypes instead of up-to-date research.<\/span><\/p>\n Sincerely,<\/p>\n Peter G. Prontzos<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Peter Prontzos Dear Editor, There are a number of serious problems with your characterization of primal therapy, but I will discuss only the most\u00a0serious one. The author claims that a “major flaw” with primal “is that studies have cast\u00a0doubt on the existence of deeply repressed memories.” \u00a0The truth is the exact opposite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,36],"class_list":["post-89","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-primal-therapy","tag-peters-posts","tag-primal-therapy"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theprimalmind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theprimalmind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theprimalmind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theprimalmind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theprimalmind.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.theprimalmind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160,"href":"https:\/\/www.theprimalmind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions\/160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theprimalmind.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theprimalmind.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theprimalmind.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}