Different Types of Primals
by Barbara Bryan
There are different opinions on what a “primal” is. David Freundlich,
M.D., one of the early primal therapists, defined it this way: “A primal
experience is the reliving of those early life events during which the child
turned off his primal needs and pains and developed a personality split
and an unreal self.” Dr. Freundlich developed a summary of the various
types of primals. Quoted here are some of his basic primal types:
“ Full Primal – A complete feeling-thought-body experience during
which specific childhood traumas are relived and accompanied by such
basic feelings as need, frustration, pain, fear, hurt, aloneness, sadness,
helplessness, and anger. Even during birth primals, the observing ego
may vary from alertness to minimal awareness. The therapeutic value is
in releasing incompletely felt childhood scenes, and making connections
between these traumas and neurotic symptoms, compulsive behavior, and
acting out.
Partial Primal – Pure feelings such as anger, fear, need, hurt, and pain
are experienced and expressed unaccompanied by memories, scenes or
images. These feelings, sometimes stemming from pre-verbal sources,
are often frustrating for the adult to tolerate because they are
disconnected from visual or verbal memories. The reverse, the reliving
and acting out of memories devoid of much feeling also occurs.
Nevertheless, they help to strengthen the cognitive understanding of
repetitive life patterns.
Incomplete Primal - A primal that has not been worked through fully,
and results in residual tension and confusion rather than a feeling of
relief. Sometimes one primal activates others which are incompletely
experienced.
Positive Primal – Although most primals are painful, positive primals
are also important; feeling love for and from one’s parents, recapturing
“good” or happy aspects about oneself as a child. These experiences
help us to re-own positive parts of one’s history and real self.
Present Primal – while primals traditionally are the reliving of the
past, primal-type experiences, they also involve the expression of basic
emotions related to more current situations where the person allows
himself to lose control and be overwhelmed by feelings. Sometimes
these occurrences trip off primals from the past.”
I am sure we could all add to this list and our definitions of a primal
may vary, also. This could start up an interesting discussion on Ewail.
Here is my brief definition: “A primal is a letting go of conscious controls
of the body and emotions which opens up the unconscious to awareness.
This allows memories and insights to emerge which have a healing value.”
Barb
babryan@mi.rr.com
Articles by Barbara Bryan
House Rules
Guidelines For Buddying
Guidelines For Peer Primal Groups
Types of Primals
Articles - Subject Index
Articles - Author Index
Primal Psychotherapy Articles - Title Index
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