7.6 /10 1 Votes
Country United States Pages 446 Originally published 1970 Page count 446 Subject Primal therapy | 3.8/5 Goodreads Language English ISBN 0-349-11834-5 Genre Psychology | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Media type Print (Hardcover and Paperback) Similar Arthur Janov books, Psychotherapy books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Primal Scream. Primal Therapy: The Cure for Neurosis (1970; second edition 1999) is a book by Arthur Janov, in which Janov describes his experiences with patients during the months he discovered Primal therapy. The book was popular and brought Janov fame and popular success, which inspired other therapists to start offering imitation primal therapy.
Contents
Summary
Janov describes the experiences he had with 63 patients during his first 18 months (starting in 1967) discovering and practicing Primal therapy. He claims a 100% cure rate. Janov writes that primal therapy has in some ways returned to the early ideas and techniques of Sigmund Freud.
Influence and reception
The Primal Scream has been described as "incredibly popular". The book made Janov well known across the English speaking world, and it has been claimed that it sold more than one million copies internationally. Author Albert Goldman, writing in The Lives of John Lennon (1988), reported that Janov sent pre-publication copies of The Primal Scream to celebrities such as John Lennon and Mick Jagger, and that Lennon subsequently underwent primal therapy with Janov. The Primal Scream was read by tens of thousands of Americans and brought Janov fame and popular success. This inspired many therapists who had not met him to offer imitation primal therapy, and led to the proliferation of programs offering happiness through radical personal transformation.
Author Joel Kovel wrote that The Primal Scream shows that Janov is one of several figures in the history of psychotherapy who have come to be seen as savior figures, noting that the book had received "extravagant praise" from the Chattanooga Times and the Berkeley Gazette, both of which compared Janov to Freud. He credited Janov with tapping a "bedrock of great emotional power."
A revised edition of The Primal Scream was published in 1999.