According to Arthur Janov in his recent book, The Primal Scream, “neurosis is a disease of the feeling. At its core is the suppression of feelin

The Primal Scream, by Arthur Janov

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2024-11-10 21:00:09

According to Arthur Janov in his recent book, The Primal Scream, “neurosis is a disease of the feeling. At its core is the suppression of feeling and its transmutation into a wide range of neurolic behavior.”

In a culture whose educational goals are directed toward the development of the mind or, more precisely, the technological use of the mind, this is not a surprising diagnosis. Suppression of feeling is obviously a price we pay for viewing rationality apart from the energies of the whole man. But Janov does not “console” himself with the rationalization that we live in an age of neurosis . . .” He suggests that “there is something beyond improved functioning in socially acceptable ways, something beyond symptomatic relief . . . there is a state of being quite different from that which we have conceived . . .”

Janov believes that neurosis begins when a child is not loved and accepted for what he is. Not being able to be himself, not being able to feel his own real needs without a painful sense of contradiction, he shuts himself off from his feelings and begins to “want” those things which he believes will bring his parents’ love. But the denied needs do not disappear. The pressure generated by their lack of fulfillment accumulates in his organism, upsetling its natural balance, and causing behavior which becomes increasingly “symbolic.” This symbolic behavior eventually shields the neurotic from his own inner pain, and supports him in his “hope” that his substitute wants and needs will somehow be satisfied. He does not realize that his struggle for satisfaction is essentially historical, that it derives its energy from the pains of the past. As a result, the neurotic’s life is full of the tensions that arise from his constantly defending himself against himself. As Janov points out, “people go crazy to keep from feeling their truth.”

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