primal therapy

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noun Psychiatry.

a form of psychotherapy in which the patient is encouraged to relive traumatic events, often screaming or crying, in order to achieve catharsis and a breakdown of psychological defenses.

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Origin of primal therapy

An Americanism dating back to 1970–75

Words nearby primal therapy

primage, prima inter pares, primal, primal scene, primal scream, primal therapy, primaquine, primaries, primarily, primary, primary accent

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use primal therapy in a sentence

Though tissues are present and tears are not uncommon, the Dinner Parties are distinctly not grief counseling or group therapy.
Everyone at This Dinner Party Has Lost Someone|Samantha Levine|January 6, 2015|DAILY BEAST
I return home after several days in the hospital and start thrice weekly physical therapy.
You’re Never ‘Cured’ of an Eating Disorder|Carrie Arnold|December 20, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The campaign included a push for the World Health Organization to condemn gay-conversion therapy.
China’s Electroshock Gay-Conversion Case|Nina Strochlic|December 19, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Collaborating with him on a film was the best kind of therapy I could have asked for.
Blogger Shares and Shames Cancer in ‘Lily’|Amy Grantham|December 9, 2014|DAILY BEAST

And for those seeking a quick fix: Studies show that light therapy can spur a mood lift in just several days.
9 Ways to Cope With Seasonal Affective Disorder|DailyBurn|December 5, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The poverty of earlier days was the outcome of the insufficiency of human labor to meet the primal needs of human kind.
The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice|Stephen Leacock
The primal rigidity of the straight line yields later on to the freedom of an organ.
Children's Ways|James Sully
From that day to this, man has been occupied in unfolding this method, and has advanced enormously beyond his primal state.
Man And His Ancestor|Charles Morris
In serum therapy antitoxins are artificially excited into being in the blood of beasts.
Essays In Pastoral Medicine|Austin Malley
Anaximenes, seeing that animals die without air, thought that air was the great primal cause.
Beacon Lights of History, Volume I|John Lord

British Dictionary definitions for primal therapy

primal therapy

noun

psychol a form of psychotherapy in which patients are encouraged to scream abusively about their parents and agonizingly about their own suffering in infancyAlso called: primal scream therapy, scream therapy

Word Origin for primal therapy

C20: from the book The Primal Scream (1970) by Arthur Janov, US psychologist, who originated the treatment

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012