The Difference between Reform and Revolution

The difference between Primal and the other psychotherapies is that the others are reformists and we are revolutionists.  So what does that mean?  In reform, the power structure, the current professional zeitgeist is left intact and one works within it.  No basic change.  In a revolutionary approach the current professional zeitgeist is overthrown and we do not work with that structure.  So one is able to make moderate change without changing anything; and the other is changing everything.  What does that mean?

Leaving the theory aside for a moment,
It means no more 50 minute hour where the doctor looks at his watch instead of at her patient to see if she is crying or hurting.
It means a quiet, soundproof setting and sessions which are open ended where the patient stays as long as he needs.
It means a place where the patient is heard and not lectured to.
It means a setting where her feelings count the most.
It means a place where the doctor does not offer insight into the patient’s deep unconscious and where the patient already “knows” what is wrong once we unleash the unconscious.
It means the patient is the final arbiter.

   The above means a revolutionary structure where the whole setting is conducive to feeling, not to endless discussion, a bavardage (endless esoteric discussion)  between patient and doctor that goes nowhere.   The point being that we cannot conduct a revolutionary therapy in a conventional setting.  Way back when, I tried that, with expensive Spanish furniture, which was soon was full of holes.

   Reform does not question the status quo but works within it.  But neurosis is obdurate and will hang on, dictating behavior and symptoms no matter how we try to change them.  And when we are reformists we are forced to be tinkerers. There is no choice.  The reason is that neurosis is systemic, taking in all of us, and it is everywhere.  When we try to change it we must take into account the entire system, not just something here and there that we try to control and change.  In reform we can only treat piecemeal because we are inside the defense system, working within the neurosis.  So, accordingly there must be an experiential therapy that encompasses all of us, something that begins with the brain and history as they affect how we act.  If we do not do that then the symptom or behavior will return over and over again as in drinking and smoking or taking drugs.  We can submit to a here-and-now therapy that begins with the symptom and not the person and can drive the symptom  away, usually underground, falsely believing we have made progress.  All this means that we ignore history and the imprint of the history in the brain and find this technique or another to combat the symptom or behavior.

   In reform , we push the symptom down either through that bavardage I mentioned, or through medication which is designed to push back feelings.  We need to reverse that approach and liberate, not suppress the person.  And what does liberation mean?  That unmet needs have finally been attended to.   It is filling unfulfilled needs that are crucial in a liberated society, which is also true in the personal realm, getting to need.  If there is no focus on need, there is perforce a reactionary therapy no matter what name we give it.  When we understand the brain more,  particularly the neo-cortical brain, we see that one of its  functions is to use language to suppress feelings.  And indeed, in history one reason we evolved from feelings to ideas, I believe, is to have a system where we can disengage from ourselves and split off from feelings that are very painful.  We can flee to our “head,”  leaving our body behind.

   Let’s take an example:  heavy drinking.    The person can go to center after center for rehabilitation.  No matter what the rehab does, it is never revolutionary; they are  busy getting results in a  hurry.  Their historical causes are rarely here and now, but sequestered through a long evolution of our lives.  We need to allow for “evolutionary” time getting down there.   Rehab is not designed to do that.  Getting down deep in the brain means getting to generating sources and that may well mean overthrowing the imprinted memory.  It means ultimately reversing the imprint so that we are no longer driven by it.  This means altering the brain circuitry.  Changing structure and function.   It means basic change in our biochemistry, as well.

Any therapy that is not experiential can succeed.  There are therapies that pretend to focus on the body, but that is to the exclusion of the brain.    And there are so-called feeling therapies, such as Gestalt, that still focus on the present, encouraging  screaming but it still remains in the present.   We must always keep revolution in mind in therapy because once we try to change a specific pattern of behavior, we are ignoring evolution.

    All this means overthrowing who we are; the face we present to the world.  When patients get to deep feelings their faces change. The look different, because they are different.