Primal Therapy - History

History

In 1967, Janov had his pivotal session with Danny Wilson (pseudonym), a patient who recalled emotionally a Theatre of the Absurd function where Raphael Montañez Ortíz shouted "Mama!", inviting the audience to do the same. Janov encouraged Danny Wilson insistently to do the same. The patient finally fell to the floor in pain for half an hour. Janov taped the session and reheard it repeatedly. He did not understand its meaning until years later.

In 1968, The Primal Institute was founded by Arthur Janov and his first wife, Vivian.

On January 1, 1970, Arthur Janov published his first book, The Primal Scream. In March, Arthur and Vivian started treating John Lennon and Yoko Ono. In 1970, Janov registered the name Primal as a trademark at the U.S. Patent Office and had his attorneys sue therapists using the word Primal to describe their work. The International Primal Association and the Primal Feeling Center challenged Janov's trademark. In 1978, the U.S. Department of Commerce cancelled the registration. "Primal Therapy" is now listed among genericized trademarks that became "free to anyone to use in describing products or services."

In 1971, two trainee primal therapists (another source claims they were "therapists" at the Primal Institute), Joseph Hart and Richard Corriere, abandoned Arthur Janov and started the Center for Feeling Therapy. Hart claimed: "When we left Janov, forty percent of the patients came with us....we found that most had been faking their primals."

In 1973 a "birth simulator" was in use at the Primal Institute. The simulator was a 10-foot-long adjustable pressure vinyl tube. The patient was covered with a slick substance to simulate birth. Reports were made of bruises from obstetricians' fingers appearing on the skin of patients reliving their births.

In 1977, Arthur Janov filed a $US7.1 million ($25 million in 2009 dollars) suit against Psychology Today, because the magazine called primal therapy "Jabberwocky".

In 1982, the German courts decided in two legal findings that insurance companies did not have to pay for primal therapy.

In 1982, Arthur Janov and his second wife, Dr. France D. Janov (married 1980), started to offer primal therapy in Paris through an organization called the European Primal Institute (EPI). According to the UNADFI and Science et Vie, patients had to sign a contract "disengaging the Institute of all responsibility" until the Parisian operation closed down without previous warning in August 1985. According to these sources, some patients were "abandoned" (abandonnés), caught by the sudden closing of the EPI with their therapy unfinished. Janov wrote them a letter saying, "I can not live anymore in the midst of pain and misery; after 35 years seeing patients, it is time for me to live my own life."

In June 1989, two fires caused an estimated $US475,000 ($821,000 in 2009 dollars) damage at The Primal Institute in West Los Angeles. Authorities ruled the fire as arson.

In 1989, Arthur Janov established the Janov Primal Center in Venice (later relocated to Santa Monica) with his second wife, France.