AHP - A GUIDE TO HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY

PRIMAL INTEGRATION
This is a form of therapy brought over to this country by Bill Swartley, although it was also pioneered here by Frank Lake. It lays the major stress upon early trauma at the basic cause of neurosis, and enables people to regress back in time to the point where the trouble began, and then to relive it. For this reason some people call it regression- integration therapy.
It puts a lot of emphasis on the whole person, and aims at getting body, feelings, intellect and spirit into some appropriate harmony. That is why there is so much talk about the integration aspect. It is not enough to relive primal events, and so change one's personality accordingly; there is then the long task of exploring all the implications of the change one is making.
Primal integration is one of the heaviest forms of therapy, in the sense of going very deeply into unconscious material. Accordingly, it is not recommended as a first approach to therapy - rather it is for those who have done some form of therapy already, and who now feel ready to go down into the very roots of their neurosis. Because it deals with old and strong emotions - often in situations which the person felt were too much to take - there may be a good deal of pain involved.
However, there is primal joy and primal love, as well as primal pain, and there is also a spiritual aspect to the whole thing, often missed or even denied by some other approaches in this area. It seems that the deeper one goes into primal material, the more likely one is to have spiritual experiences too. And these can help a great deal in the process of integration, where we are calling on all the resources we can to build the person up again from scratch, without the harmful assumptions of one's previous approach to life.
Primal integration sets very little in the way of limits for where the person can go to in the process of therapy. Some people may never get further back than childhood, some go back into infancy; some go back to the birth process; some go back into foetal life, or even further back than that. Each person is encouraged, with no help from hypnosis or drugs, to go into whatever most concerns them, in a direct and straightforward way. There are no special rules such as isolation periods or abstinence.
Both group work (usually with two leaders of opposite sexes) and individual work are carried out. This is done in a very active way, often with several people in the group participating. The group work is good for bringing out and working through traumas, and the individual work is particularly good for working up to that (preparation), and for working through the implications of what hapens in the group, and enabling integration to take place (consolidation). An interview is usually required before people are invited to join a group.
BOOKLIST
Albery, Nicholas (1985) How to feel reborn? Regeneration Press, London. A full and scholarly examination of all aspects of rebirthing, plus personal experiences, etc.
Chamberlain, David (1988) Babies remember birth Ballantine, New York. A well written book with a lot of case histories and vignettes.
Emerson, William (1984) Infant and child birth re-facilitation Institute for Holistic Education, Guildford. A short book with course material.
Fedor-Freybergh, Peter G & Vogel, M L Vanessa (eds)(1988) Prenatal and perinatal psychology and medicine Parthenon, New Jersey. Sixteen countries, fifty-five chapters, 700 pages of papers, mostly from a conference held in Austria. Fascinating.
Feher, Leslie (1980) The psychology of birth Souvenir Press, London. Also has a good chapter on the medical aspects of birth by a doctor.
Grof, Stanislav (1975) Realms of the human unconscious Viking Press, New York. Tells all about the basic perinatal matrices of experience.
Grof, Stanislav (1988) The adventure of self-discovery SUNY Press, Albany. Links up the birth experience with the transpersonal and rebirth. Gives details of how the work is done. Janov, Arthur (1983) Imprints Coward McCann, New York. Janov looks at the birth experience. Ignores other work, but is interesting in parts.
Janov, Arthur (1990) The new primal scream Abacus, London. The latest updated version of Janov's views.
Laing, R D (1976) The facts of life Penguin. A quirky and offputting book, containing some very interesting material.
Laing, R D (1983) The voice of experience Penguin. Again some very fascinating ideas and data.
Lake, Frank (1966) Clinical theology Darton, Longman & Todd, London. Usually known as The Tome, this enormous book contains some wonderful lengthy case histories.
Lake, Frank (1980) Constricted confusion Clinical Theology Association, Oxford. A set of bound notes on the intrauterine experience - brilliant.
Lake Frank (1981) Tight corners in pastoral counselling Darton, Longman & Todd, London. Contains some interesting material on his way of working.
Lake, Frank (1986) Clinical theology (abridged by Martin Yeomans) Darton, Longman & Todd, London. Not a patch on the original, but worth having.
Peerbolte, Lietaert (1975) Psychic energy in prenatal dynamics Servire, Wassenaar. Deals with conception trauma and other matters.
Pierce R A et al (1983) Emotional expression in psychotherapy Gardner Press, London. An excellent book, with some research data.
Piontelli, Allesandra (1992) From fetus to child: An observational and psychoanalytical study Routledge, London. At last, an admission from a psychoanalyst that prenatal experience is possible and important.
Ridgway Roy (1987) The unborn child Wildwood House, Aldershot. An up-to- date account of what is known objectively. Rossi, Ernest Lawrence (1994) The psychobiology of mind body healing W W Norton, New York. A technical account of how prenatal memory is possible.
Rowan, John (1988) 'Primal Integration' in J Rowan & W Dryden (eds) Innovative therapy in Britain Open University Press, Milton Keynes. The only complete rundown available on Primal Integration.
Verny, Tom (1982) The secret life of the unborn child Sphere, London. A sober examination of the research data. Excellent.
Verny, Tom (1994) 'Working with pre- and perinatal material in psychotherapy' Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal 8/3 161-186. An up- to-date account of what is known, with plenty of references.

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