Word: scream
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...film again the same evening, and on second viewing it was -- like any complex film -- even more alive, more intense, more involving. Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider lead compressed lives -- lives that burn out almost in an instant. Brando's scream in the film's brilliant opening scene declares an existential wound -- later filled, if only for an instant, by Brando and Schneider's sudden and passionate coming together. During their short-lived ecstasy, Brando declares that "everything outside of this place is bullshit...
...first volume, The Primal Scream, published three year ago, provoked intense personal reactions, both in those to whose common sense Janov appealed and in those who claimed the book was unmitigated nonsense. Almost all the people I know who have read the book were visibly upset by it. None were psychology majors and, therefore, they were all relatively unaccustomed to "intellectualizing" about psychology. While reading Janov's chapter on "The Nature of Feeling," I discovered I was reliving, in rather vivid detail, several childhood experiences I would have thought I'd entirely forgotten. I am not surprised by those...
...great usefullness of The Primal Scream, though, stems from the theoretical issues Janov raises. Unfortunately, his critics rarely discuss him on theoretical grounds. Competing psychologists smirk and point out connections between Primal Theory and older theories, most of which Janov acknowledges in The Primal Scream. Some claim that various other therapies can be helpful and hardly address the substance of Janov's work. Some critics strike at Janov's often naive language, undoubtedly a vulnerable point but not an excuse for avoiding the usefulness of his ideas. Janov clearly leaves himself open to such criticism, saying things like...
...appropriate for the time of childhood deprivation, the patient frees himself from the impules to release tension through symbolic behavior. This is accompanied by physical convulsions as muscles loosen after a lifetime of tension and resistence. The physical reaction--the all-out cry for fulfillment--is the Primal Scream. It is a reconnection of mind and body, and physical changes--in voice pitch, height, breast size, and so on--often accompany the cure and are specifically connected with each patient's neurosis...
...because I'm right. By understanding the nature of Janov's stumbling advance, it is easier to articulate the shortcomings of his theory. Most of these weaknesses appear more explicitly in The Primal Revolution, a new and less formally structured book written to answer questions Janov believes The Primal Scream leaves unanswered. The crucial weakness lies in a distinction Janus fails to make--a distinction between awareness and expression--and from his failure to fully understand the implications of the conclusion that consciousness of real needs depends upon the ability to express them...