Posted by mandinka on November 2, 2004, at 18:11:06
In reply to Re: what is this?, posted by lifeworthliving on November 2, 2004, at 12:10:35
Usually emotional release takes anywhere between 90 min to even three hours - so the length of your session makes perfect sense. Sometimes primals are just about releasing emotions without any specific memories accompanying them. At other times, a person is flooded with new memories along with the emotions. While the person undergoes a primal there is always a part of him or her that is the "observing bystander" that can switch off the process if it is too much but usually if stuff like this comes up it means that you are ripe for it. There are ways of controlling a primal, so it doesn't catch you at the wrong moment.
After the primal it is important to integrate the insights gained by accessing the new memories and feelings. Insight is a very important step and shouldn't be ommited.
There can be incomplete primals. If you feel no relief after such emotional flooding then either your primal was incomplete - there is still more to come or you were just abreacting (people who never really primalled often confuse primals with abreaction). A real primal gives you enormous relief and a sense that you gained access to the truth about your past, yourself and often also the perpetrators of the abuse.
During primals you can relive the same experience time after time from a different perspective, integrating different components of the same incident.
Regressive therapies will take you right back to conception. People who live in constant fear could find out for example that their mother wanted to abort them or there were difficulties at the implantation stage of pregnancy, which threatened the survival of the ovum. I think I've read somewhere that BPDs are often survivors of abortion attempts.
This all might sound pretty fantastic but I know people who relived those things and they are hardly kooks.
Regressive therapies are possibly the most powerful form of psychotherapy there is out there but it is very dangerous in incompetent hands. A therapist who has never undergone regressive therapy themself for at least several years should never practice it. My T2 who trains therapists says that she turns down therapists with PhDs if they haven't undergone regressive therapy.
poster:mandinka
thread:410361
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041026/msgs/410774.html