Biology of Love

by Arthur Janov

The first unified theory of psychology and neurology.

Drawing on years of experience with thousands of patients and a growing body of evidence in neurophysiology, human biology and psychology, Dr. Janov shows how love or the lack of it affects not only our sense of psychological well-being but our physical health and our personalities as well. The developing brain and its chemistry are affected for a lifetime by what happens to the developing fetus and the growing child.

Janov's central thesis is that pre-birth experience and a traumatic birth are imprinted into our nervous systems, resulting in the psychological and psychosomatic diseases of later life. After birth, when the infant needs to feel loving caresses, lack of love can be as injurious as lack of oxygen at birth. Dr. Janov brings together scientific evidence from a number of disciplines to show how the presence or absence of a loving, nurturing environment in the womb and out of it can affect the complex neural connections of the brain in the forming nervous system.

This provocative, original work synthesizes the latest neurological research with psychological theory and Dr. Janov's long experience of successfully treating patients in therapy. He makes everything understandable to the educated lay person, yet maintains the interest of professionals in psychology, medicine and biology.

The Biology of Love is also a book about cure and prevention. Through Dr. Janov's unique therapy, patients are able to relive those critical events that are at the root of their present-day problems. The patients, in their own words, provide remarkable testimony to the changes possible when they reverse history, undoing the traumas that crippled their lives for decades. Through their experiences, there is a clear picture of how best to ensure a good start to life, even in the womb and how to change the way we raise our children once they come out.

Genres: Psychology

300 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Psychologist, psychotherapist, and the creator of primal therapy, a treatment for mental illness that involves repeatedly descending into, feeling, and expressing long-repressed childhood pain. Janov directed a psychotherapy institute called the Primal Center in Santa Monica, California.

Janov wrote that his professional life changed in a single day in 1967 with the discovery of what he calls Primal Pain.During a therapy session, Janov heard what he describes as, “an eerie scream welling up from the depths of a young man lying on the floor”. He developed primal therapy, in which clients are encouraged to re-live and express repressed feelings.

Janov's patients included John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_J...

Reviews

[Karen]

I didn't realize Janov had developed so many important insights.

[Leah]

starting it....