From Newsgroup: rec.music.beatles

On 5/31/25 5:32 AM, Norbert wrote:

The basic assumption of Janov's purported scream therapy is that people
are full of pain that they have repressed, and that this pain can be
purged through screaming, leaving the patient stable, healthy, and free
of addictions.

I contend it's all bullshit, and the case of John Lennon proves this. Post-Janov, Lennon was immersed in heroin and nicotine as ever.-a The
interviews he gave were full of anger and paranoia towards former
friends and colleagues.-a The music he wrote -- namely, that of Plastic
Ono Band -- was primitive to the point of childish; it is infantile. It's as if Lennon forgot all the effort he had made as a young man to
drive the Beatles to the top.-a He has forgotten how to write real songs.

The lyrics of POB are all about how screwed up, delusional, and
infantile he was.-a "My Mummy's Dead," sung to the tune of "Three Blind Mice," contains the line "I could never show it," with the "it"
presumably referring to the pain he felt upon his mother's death. However, one needs only read Pete Shotton's book to see that Lennon did
show his pained response to his mother's death in his own way.

Janov had Lennon deluded into believing he had "repressed" all of his
pain.-a This was contemptible of Janov, who I suspect merely delighted in
the financial benefits this outspoken and famous patient would bring to him.-a Many of Lennon's pre-therapy songs are about his pain and
confusion.-a They are full of emotion.

What exactly is repression, anyway?-a It is the notion that a facet of
the mind pushes traumatic experiences into the unconscious, where the repressed emotions nonetheless continue to plague the person.-a Is there
a scientific basis for this?-a No.-a See, e.g., Frederick Crews's article "Revenge of the Repressed" for a thorough analysis of this subject.

Primal Therapy hurt John in yet another way.-a May Pang wrote in her book Loving John that a cold, angry Yoko vowed to get back at Lennon for his cheating with her.-a "I've been through primal therapy with him," Yoko hissed, "I know his deepest fears."

Janov is yet another of the crackpots Lennon had become susceptible to through his excessive LSD intake.

It's worth studying but not by gullible but by the skeptic. It's
right to be skeptical in general of the "therapy" movements of those
times like encounter groups, the human potential movement, EST,
Synanon, People's Temple, Scientology, Rajneesh, etc, they were
sadistic groups that basically involve leaders directing groups to
attack people one at a time, with and without physical violence, keeping
people awake for days at a time, enforced malnourishment, enforced
isolation, and hatred directed at the "normal" people outside the
institution. These groups had very high expenses on lawyers (little
Synanon kept a legal team of 39, paid for by money stolen from the
state and from clients) that really you could call them "lawyer cults",
taking advantage of California's lax enforcement of legal malpractice.
I've no idea if scream therapy fits in there somewhere, but these are
the basic elements of therapy fraud.







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