In 2004 I started my journey into the Three levels of Mind by undergoing Janovian Primal Therapy. In the house analogy I use in my writings, I had to go from my penthouse (cognition) and into my feeling rooms (limbic system) and then down into the basement of my mind. (brainstem). The basement of my mind was where the anxiety was experienced as pure terror. I had to enter this space many times during therapy to release all the terror that imprinted at this level. While in this space I realised that imprinted terror from childhood experiences of a brutal father, plus facing death from parents who where not meeting my needs, was an unconscious driving force in how I formed my character and how I conducted my life.
At the time I wondered why the mental health industry was not aware of the importance of the three levels of mind, but thought it must become obvious to them quite quickly. It is now 14 years later and much to my dismay the mental health industry are still pretty much on the old path.
Darlene Lancer is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who has written books on human relationships. This is what she has to say about anxiety. “Anxiety is the apprehension of experiencing fear in the future”
“The danger that is feared isn’t normally imminent – it may not even be known or realistic. The anxiety is an emotional response to something that hasn’t occurred, so there is nothing to fight or flee”.
However, after undergoing Primal Therapy I knew my anxiety came from past experiences and was very real. The fact I was anxious and fearful about the present and future was because my past was so terrible. My anxiety was caused by past experiences, something that DID occur and was threatening to my very survival. After reliving the terror that had been repressed my present life is much better.
Darlene Lancer continues, “Tension, therefore builds up inside our body, but there is no action we can take to release it”.
My goodness, Darlene, you should become familiar with Janovian Primal Therapy because this therapy gives us the means to release the awfulness of the underlying terror in a way that is permanent. Fear and anxiety ruin so many lives. You and your colleagues would do well to become familiar with the importance of the three different levels of mind, or consciousness.
David A Carbonell PhD wrote a book “The Worry Trick” He says “Psychotherapy empowers patients to reduce anxiety by changing beliefs, thoughts and behaviour throughout their lives without the side effects of prescription drugs”.
What David Carbonell does not understand is that our thoughts, beliefs and behaviours – that are manifestations of our cognitive minds – are driven and formed by the imprints in the basement of our minds. If we have had good experiences from loving parents in our childhood then our adult life reflects that loving goodness. My adult life was a mess because my childhood was horrible. Undergoing Janovian primal therapy has released the primal pain and so now my beliefs, thoughts and behaviours are automatically more in line with a healthy and happy life. I don’t have to spend the rest of my life trying to manipulate my mind as David Carbonell suggests is the only way to a half-reasonable life.
I have used the writings of Darlene Lancer and David Carbonell to illustrate where the mental health industry is at in 2018, because in my experience they reflect the views of the overall industry and its current paradigm.
The Three Levels of Mind is a real liveable experience and the mental health industry will struggle to understand the human condition until it adopts the three levels into what promises to be a species altering paradigm – much greater than Darwin’s Origin of the Species.