During the first weeks of therapy, the person typically struggles with the issue of whether or not to commit fully to the therapy; she must decide if she is willing to take the personal risks that it entails. She often finds it difficult to contact feelings and, out of frustration, may perceive herself as a "hard nut to crack."
Nevertheless, when she is able to make contact with feelings, they are perhaps deeper and more powerful than any she has ever experienced. The primaler acknowledges, as perhaps never before, the tremendous intensity of feelings and learns that she can have these feelings in the context of therapy without "going crazy." The person comes to see herself as a fully feeling person.He now begins to perceive himself as starting a new phase of life. Feeling alone on a journey, it seems as if most other people are not capable of understanding what he is going through. He tends to feel different from other people who have not experienced the primal process, and may even think himself somehow "superior." The world seems a little crazy. People seem "unreal," as if they are playing games or masquerading. He may want to "turn on" the whole world to Primal Therapy. At the same time, he worries that the therapy may not work or that he is incapable of enduring it. The primaler sometimes wonders whether others are getting more from the therapy than he is. He is confused much of the time, but learning to allow his confusion.
During this period, the person is afraid of the outside world and withdraws from it somewhat. Often it seems that she will never get through her old feelings, as if they are a "bottomless pit." It seems as if she will never get what she needs. She wonders whether the therapy is worth the pain. She often finds herself waiting to have a "magical primal" which, in one shot, will somehow relieve here of all of her pain. Still, there are moments, often after a complete feeling, when faith about the process is renewed--that she may possibly find contentment. Primal Therapy has now begun to feel like an integral part of life. The person has come to realize that, whoever she has become, it is impossible to return to being who she was before the therapy.
The person now begins to accept that, as an adult, he is never going to get those things that he needed as a child. He realizes that he has been struggling to extract love from his parents, and from the world. Refusing any longer to beg for the love he never received, he realizes how crazy it has made him to struggle for that love. He accepts that there is no payoff for the pain that he has experienced, and that he is alone in the world.
The person now comes to see herself as truly separate from other people. At the same time, she is also becoming aware of how much she shares with everyone else in the world; she is more tolerant of others, more accepting of their feelings. She is becoming aware of something inside of herself that feels very beautiful and loving, something she is capable of sharing with others. She is also beginning to make contact with a sense of great inner power.
The primaler now begins to take a more active role in the feeling process, relying more on himself than on therapists for the direction of his therapy. He is becoming increasingly aware of the interrelationship between what is going on inside of himself and what is happening outside of him. He is gradually giving up his anger at his parents and, at the same time, feeling less attached to them. He begins to realize that he is capable of surviving on his own. The person depends less on other people and struggles less to make people understand him. Being generally more honest and straightforward with people, relationships seem easier and less complicated. He notices that he is reacting differently in familiar situations.
A primaler begins to consciously "take the bull by the horns" and to make life changes. She is beginning to live life in terms of her own needs, rather than attempting to please others. There is a developing sense of what it is to be "clear," and she more fully accept the uniqueness of her own reality. Having been through the primal process, she is now confident that her vision is deep and accurate.
Generally less anxious he now tends to focus more on current rather than past feelings, although the old feelings now tend to be deeper and more terrifying than anything previously experienced. The person still feels pain in life--the pain associated with the inevitable hurtfulness of daily living. At the same time he is now capable of feeling his pain, of moving through it and beyond it. He feels generally competent, equal to life's challenges. The person now wants to explore other avenues of growth and, at the same time, seems to be attracting those things that will enhance his growth.
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