Evolution in Reverse: Demystifying My Epilepsy

By Jan Johnsson

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• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456784300

Jan Johnsson

Jan Johnsson I am a retired general manager. I have lived and worked in five countries, although I had epilepsy of different character. I have opened my Pandors Box to my often quite neurotic life. I'm now enjoying the sun and the mountains in Genovés in Spain together with my young daughter.

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Table of Contents

Forewords

My intention with Evolution in Reverse a different Epileptic Journey.

Introduction to a book about a Different Epileptic Journey.

DR Janovs recommendations to Colleagues and Shrinks everywhere.

The pain behind epilepsy and neuroses; feelings and insights:

Pandora’s Box

The importance of a few words. (Letter to A.J.)

Epileptic journey. A summary.

Self-knowledge or self-deception?

Dostoevsky and others.

Back home from the sunshine in Beverly Hills to the darkness in Brokamåla.

Time of Waiting. To find comfort in poetry.

This is your life.

Examples of relations before I got it all together:

The important mentors who made my subjective well-being possible.

A small turtle with glass crystals.

Hidden Agenda. (A letter to friends for over 30 years)

Anything I could do, he could do better…

When there is pain, there are no words. All pain is the same. Toni Morrison

Killing Softly.

How to pin a butterfly.

Bonding

Decicive events that marked my life and my career:

To fulfill onces own unique destiny.

The man with the hat.

Denmark and Axiology.

Given enough lead time.

Being a misfit. A knife in the chest of my boss.

Leaps in development and hope for progress.

Extreme experiences:

Sleepwalking.

Getting rid of a phobia.

Communication between the brain hemispheres. (Three examples.)

Dream a little dream of me…

Reflections:

Do I have masochistic tendencies?

Epilepsy, migraine and suicidal thoughts.

Avoiding epileptics.

Overall, I have been fortunate.

Thoughts and reflections on epilepsy treatment

The research confirms the evolutionary procedure.

Epileptic literature.

Conclusion:

Do I have any advice?

I have a dream vision…

My intention with Evolution in Reverse a different Epileptic Journey.

This book is intended as the memoirs of an epileptic. It is a biography with the intention to avoid getting caught negatively in the aspects of my life and work, mistakes, accidents, sickness and tragedy. What I am trying to convey is how I acted in different contexts in which I tried to hide and survive my illness and to narrate all the exciting psychological and social complications and consequences of the different character that this brought.

By the fact that I during more than four decades have collected notes, letters and documentation of my thoughts, feelings and experiences in my Pandora’s Box, I have had access to razor-sharp details from experiences that I registered when they occurred.

Dynamic psychotherapy is like a thread through the entire book, which is a result of almost 40 years of contact and relationship with the American psychologist DR Art Janov. Primal Therapy has contributed to the sensational change of my epilepsy and has given me an insight into how neuroses develop and can be dissolved when no longer needed by survival reasons.

One can see the book as an interesting history, of a shameful disease, epilepsy, perceived from within, which occurred while the external conditions changed from the 1940s agricultural society to our days postindustrial and increasingly virtual world. The story shows how my experiences became possible and exceptionally exciting by the fact that I simultaneusly was able to make a career and use my skills as a change consultant.

The book uncovers the fabulous adaptation and survival capabilities of the brain, no matter what type of stimulants it is forced to respond to. Some basic human requirements which I describe (as in the Abraham Maslow theory), have along the way had to be met for me to succeed in the long term.

Yours sincerely

Jan Åke Johnsson

[e-mail]

Introduction to a book about a Different Epileptic Journey.

After having been an epileptic for over 50 years, out of which I for 35 years have been committed in varying degrees to Primal Therapy, I have reached a point in my life when I want to do something that could be described as a coordinated statement of my experience of my illness, epilepsy and the dynamic psychotherapy, Primal Therapy, which has had such a decisive induence on my life.

What is epilepsy?

One of the best sites regarding epilepsy on the Internet gives the following condensed statement:

"Epilepsy is a neurological condition, which affects the nervous system. Epilepsy is also known as a seizure disorder. It is usually diagnosed after a person has had at least two seizures that were not caused by some known medical condition like alcohol withdrawal or extremely low blood sugar.Sometimes, according to the International League Against Epilepsy, epilepsy can be diagnosed after one seizure, if a person has a condition that places them at high risk for having another.

The seizures in epilepsy may be related to a brain injury or a family tendency, but most of the time the cause is unknown. The word epilepsy does not indicate anything about the cause of the person’s seizures, what type they are, or how severe they are."

What is Primal Therapy?

The following decnition is used by DR A. Janov at his website:

Painful things happen to nearly all of us early in life who gets imprinted in all our systems, which carry the memory forward making our lives miserable. It is the cause of depression, phobias, panic and anxiety attacks and a whole host of symptoms that add to the misery. We have found a way into those early emotional archives and have learned to have access to those memories, to dredge them up from the unconscious, allowing us to reexperience them in the present, integrate them and no longer be driven by them. Forforemosttime in the history of psychology there is a way to access feelings, hidden away, in a safe way and thus to reduce human suffering. It is, in essence, the crst science of psychotherapy.

After that I, during the 40-year history of Primal Therapy had been through its evolution from a promise of a quick cx of four months to today’s more scienticcally appropriate and long-term treatment methodology, so I have no complaint to DR Janovs current decnition. It cts well into me.

When I add up my many years of struggle with epilepsy, I would point out the importance of two facts; the Primal theory and then perhaps even greater impact of my access to Art Janov, the genius and innovator of the theory. They were a perpetual undercurrent when I experienced that my epilepsy had its roots in a complicated birth. In the wake of the birth process and epilepsy the brain developed, in order to survive, sophisticated neuroses as a means to numb both physical and mental pain.

However, I needed more than DR Janov and Primal Therapy to convert my epilepsy and neuroses into primal feelings. I needed a number of coincidences and exciting experiences outside of Primal Therapy to address the crucial moments. DR Janovgave me a language, a mental support, and he put words on my experiences. Thanks to his ideas I achieved a methodology to discover my dilemma and take me out of my prison of pain and become almost healthy.

I also feel a need to emphasize that DR Janov’s genius has not helped several others, who I have known, as well as it has helped me. The dozen people who I met in L.A. 1978 and 1979 failed to get rid of their pain, phobias and anxiety, and many have perished and died before the age of 60 from cancer, brain tumor, suicide, etc. Many of them did not have the resources and the patience that is necessary to endure to experience the original life-threatening pain and be able to change their situations. Each had theoretical knowledge of psychology and therapies that far outshone mine, which was possibly one of the reasons for their failures. They talked and intellectualized when I acted, driven by my epilepsy.

I personally have had the incredible fortune to maintain contact with DR Janovover 4 decadesand to correct my own practices in line with both his and myevolution.I have, with my background as a change consultantbeingused to administrative guidance, planning and programming techniques, suffered when I saw how Primal Therapy remained a relatively small therapy run by a genius, but without monitoring instruments. It is within itself the embryo of something much more comprehensive within the psychotherapy care.

DR Janovs recommendations.

To my Colleagues and Shrinks everywhere

28 May 2011

Forget what you learned in school: it is wrong

Forget what you learned about diagnosis: it is wrong

Forget what you learned about therapy: it is wrong

Forget what you learned about theory: it is wrong

Forget about your office setup: it is wrong

Forget about the fifty minute hour: it is really wrong

Forget what your learned about insights: it is wrong

Forget what your learned about therapeutic progress: it is wrong

Forget what you learned about relating to patients: it is wrong

Forget what you learned about how to treat patients: wrong again

Forget about what you learned about the unconscious: it is wrong

SO WHAT’S RIGHT?

EVERYTHING ELSE

ART JANOV

Pandora’s Box

From one of many interpretations in the Greek mythology, I have downloaded the following: Pandora means the all-giving or the all-gifted. She was originally a metal statue that was so beautiful that Zeus decided to give her life and endow her with qualities from different gods. From Aphrodite, she got her beauty and Apollo gave her musicality and the gift to heal. From Hermes Pandora got the Box, which she never was allowed to open, but when curiosity, which she got from Hera, took over, Pandora opened the Box, despite the ban and all accidents and diseases, dew out over the world. Pandora closed the box just before the Hope, which was all that was left, was leaving the box. The world then experienced a period of despair until Pandora opened the box again to free the Hope that came out of the box as a small bird. This has created the phrase Hope is the last thing to die.

For almost 35 years I have had a red plastic box, 45x30x30 cm, designed to be used as an archive or a tool box. It has been my Pandora’s box. In it I have collected all my letters, drafts, thoughts, poems about my accidents and my hopes. It has survived moves to many countries, several divorces, thorough house cleanings and multiple decisions that it should be burnt. Many times I have been faced with the difccult choice, whether to type the content or to throw it away. The material includes all the pain and all the liberating insights that I could express when I began to understand that there was a connection between my birth, my birth defects, my epilepsy and my subsequent neurotic superstructures.

There has always been an invisible lock on my red box, and I have subdued my curiosity, even if hope has never left me. After that I during my crst 40 years had built up neurotic tricks and manners to defend my fragile internal order, it took almost as long time to resolve the knots and straighten out tricky behaviors and to learn to live in a less neurotic way. Not until now I’ve been in a sufcciently good balance with myself to be able to deal with the shit without its hurting.

When I am going to tell you about my epilepsy and my various adventures and insights it will not happen in a perfect systematic order because the circumstances will have an in>uence of what happens to be the entrance to a story. The content and the core of each story will still not fundamentally be accidental, because it depends on my brain’s history, which in turn is a re>ection of evolution. The following letter to Art Janov is an example how I consciously try to improvise the sequence of my story:

Letter to Art Janov regarding a retreat in Frutigen, Swizerland (February 1982):

Since a couple of days Im back in Sweden from our week-long meeting in Frutigen and I want to try to clear up some questions about my defense mechanisms, which had a hard time during the week.

I have never been able to express my needs in a straight and honest manner. Very early in life I learned to get my needs met by acting smart. I have begun realizing that my smartness is nothing but a great anxiety and pain of not being good enough and of not being heard. On the second day of the retreat, after having been through two frightening experiences the day before (not to get help and to experience a combination of hallucination / seizure, which in reality was nothing else than an endless need to scream out my repressed pain) I experienced a feeling of being pulled out backwards in a breech delivery. Suddenly, I got an insight that this was the feeling that had persecuted me all my life. I cannot complete anything in a normal way. I try to and try to and fail, and then I start all over, making it the opposite way. It is painful and frustrating until I suddenly realize that I can do it like everyone else, only much later …

To Frutigen I had traveled together with Grete (Solweig had introduced her to me) and when I met her, I became obsessed with her blonde curly hair, and I remember I touched it a few times, and I told her about my daughter, who had the same hair when she was 2-3 years old. Grete and I spent some time together and among other things for that reason I dropped some planned business in Lausanne and stayed all week with people who participated in the retreat. I realized that it was only now that I began to understand the basic principles of Primal Therapy.

There was a connection between Gretes hair and you. During our breaking up dinner, the last evening, I was sitting together with Grete and you were seated behind us so that you could see us. My mind was working throughout the meal with the supposition that you observed us, and I did everything to make it look like Grete and I had a great time together to show you how much she liked me. I acted compulsively and knew that something was amiss but could not break the pattern. Shortly after you had left, I also broke up and went to my room, packed my suitcase and went to bed.

In the middle of the night I woke up having a feeling of a grand mal / birth primal and suddenly there was a dashback as a double image of my sister (she had dethroned me when I was 3 years old). One of the pictures showed how she looks now, with long dark hair and the other how she looked when she was 3-4 years old with blond curly hair, sitting on my father’s knee. Memories of my brother, who also had blond curly hair swept past. Curly, blonde hair was in the 40’s very special in Sweden since the country’s crown prince had 5 curly, blond children and my mother who was a big fan of the royal family was proud to have two curly own kids, her prince and princess. My hair was thin and straggly, and my father shaved it off to kick-start the growth…

The pain of not feeling accepted and loved because of the lack of curly hair has been one of my traumas for decades. I have been obsessed with curly hair. Many girlfriends, spouses, my daughter, Grete, you and many others have triggered the pain (not to feel loved and accepted and add to that the feeling underneath of being epileptic because of an abnormal birth). In my feelings during the night, an endless number of curly haired people reviewed in a playback, and I got a burning sensation (similar to a petit mall) when your image from The Primal Scream came up. That picture of you and your beautiful curly hair was not without signiccance when I was crst become fascinated by Primal therapy and its opportunities.

One day during a group meeting you came suddenly almost crashing into the room and said: There is a person here in this room, who really pisses me off! I felt instinctively hit and rightly it was me, you had meant. You said that you had heard so much shit about me during the week that I did not stand up in group meetings and talk about my problems. This attack on my defense gave me a lingering awareness if I want help, then I must be straight and stop pretending that I do not have any problems, whether about myself (the most important problem) or with others that are willing to help me. I had until then not understood how important it is to work with even small blockages in pain (obviously with less dignity and prestige) which I carry on until I can get to the birth feelings and epilepsy.

The continuation of a long letter is about my view on female therapists and my lack of concdence in their authority. I got key insights / feelings in this regard when B. (primal therapist) stood up during a group meeting and told you how humiliated and pissed off she felt when you had commented on her uncertainty because of a hysteric patient’s behavior. Suddenly, I began to respect the female therapists after B. had dared to stand up for herself and straight out tell you how she felt in a way that my own mother never dared to tell the truth to my