As human beings, from conception onwards, we need to be loved, accepted and affirmed for who we are. This enables us to develop into a whole person.

If our early needs are not met, for what ever reason, the pain and at times trauma is so overwhelming, we split off part of our self to maintain life. We become fragmented, and it is this fragmentation, which helped us survive our early life, that gets in the way of fulfilling our potential in love, work or play.

Our deeper and sometimes less accepted feelings, which hold a large amount of energy, are rarely shown. We often find it safer to stay on the surface when relating to others.

The Primal Therapy process allows us to fully express all of our feelings, which helps us integrate the fragmented parts into wholeness.

The Primal Therapy process is in essence a self directed one. As we are all unique, we will progress and open up at our own pace, thus honoring our own innate wisdom.

Primal Therapy begins like most other therapies or counselling with history-taking and assessment. However, the basis of Primal Therapy is re-experiencing significant events from our past. This takes place in a soundproof, padded room. The therapy begins by talking to the therapist about life, current symptoms and issues. It’s a natural process. All we need to do is say out loud what we are feeling and before long our bodies will begin to express these feelings through movement and sound.

When the feeling goes back far enough to reach the original unmet need, the pain is going to be re-experienced. It can occur as stomach-ache, backache, neck pain, gagging, difficulty in breathing, nausea, vomiting and so on. This occurs in conjunction with an emotional intensity, which can include deep sadness, rage, numbness and confusion. If we persevere with the feeling and express it at the early level through movement and sound, there is organic integration of the fragmented parts.

Following is an excerpt from a Primal Therapy session:

Client: I had a dream that I was really angry at my husband really, really angry, and he was lying in bed and I was hitting him and he was just lying there, but he was in my father's bed, my dead father's bed. I don’t know what that means, I don’t understand if it’s my dad I am angry at or if I am angry at my husband.

Therapist: Trust yourself, whatever you need to do or say.

Client: I am just fucken angry (client sobbing).

Therapist: Whatever you need to do, trust your body.

Client: I’m just angry; I’m just angry, angry at men, angry at all of them. I don’t know if its men in general or if it’s my dad (client still sobbing).

Therapist: You’re angry. Let that feeling come, whatever you need to do.

Client: I feel like I need to yell; my jaw is tight. My throat hurts.

Therapist: Your jaw and throat.

Client: (Yelling loudly) I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, argh my face hurts.

Therapist: Thats it , allow the feeling to come.

Client: Argh. My face hurts (client sobbing and screaming) I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. Argh my face hurts. (sobbing).

Therapist: Stay with the anger and the pain in your face.

Client: Argh, Argh, Argh (screaming, screaming, screaming). I want my dad, I want my dad back, I want my dad back, I want my daddy, I want my daddy (screaming and kicking). I want my dad, I don’t want you, you’re a yukkie dad, I want a nice dad (sobbing). You’re a yukkie dad I hate you (screaming)! I hate you! I want a nice dad. I want a nice dad. That’s what I want.

Therapist: You want a nice dad.

Client: I want the dad that I want (screaming) everything is yukkie, (starts to sob). Its hopeless, it hopeless (client grasps her throat).

Therapist: Your throat.

Client: (Deep, deep sobbing) the feeling never ends, it goes on and on. I can’t separate my husband from my dad, I can’t, it’s all the same, its men, it feels like its never going to end (deep sobbing). I can’t forgive you, I won’t forgive you, I won’t forgive you (client screaming this out, then client screams repeatedly). I can’t forgive you for what you did to my mummy, I will never forgive you, I’ll never forgive you. I will be angry forever, (deep, deep sobs of grief and pain).

This is part of an hour-long session in which the client had many insights. The level of input by the therapists is determined by the client’s needs. As this client is experienced in the primal process, little input was required.

The client began the session angry with her husband. By staying with and expressing each feeling as it arose the client was able to go back to a childhood scene where she had witnessed her father severely beating her mother. The client said that by being angry with her father, her husband and men, it somehow kept her father alive. As she had recently separated from her husband, prior to her father’s death, the anger also stopped her from feeling the unbearable sense of emptiness, helplessness and loss she was feeling now and as a child, when she could do nothing to stop what was happening to her mother. This gave the client insight into what she needed to do next to deal with her current avoidance of being alone in life.