Primal Therapy covers the basic needs aspect of development--if such needs go unmet pain is laid down in the brain and pathologies develop. Work on the primary matrix of our initial neural development always has to be returned to prior to any significant movement ahead in development. As such one cannot even really say that it is regressive...I like to think of it as contemporary dissolution to provide the space for new patterns of growth. The old must die for the new to be born.

"The memory of birth represents an important reservoir of difficult emotions and physical sensations that can contribute later in life to the development of various forms of emotional and psychosomatic disorders. Reliving and integrating pre- and perinatal traumas can have very beneficial effects; it can result in healing and profound psychospiritual transformation...And a difficult birth and poor postnatal circumstances can constitute a profound trauma that colors the entire life history of the individual." Stan Grof

The only contraindication for conducting primal therapy during kundalini awakenings, is to not do so during either radical high or low events. Besides chemical and diet intervention there are many behavioral activities one can undertake to increase neural detoxification and speed recovery such as: any exercise, hanging, alternating hot and cold, dancing, breathing, singing, toning, drumming, spinal shower, hydrotherapy, cathartic emoting, gestalt and voice dialogue role playing, rebirthing, bodywork, tantric sex and enjoyable social events. I would like to add shopping, but I think this errs on the side of being just a temporary fix.

Someone who has been bound in chains their whole life can never know what it is to experience psychosomatic freedom, and such freedom must be reached before forgiveness or en-lightenment is possible. The deprived child doesn't know what is it is missing, it only knows there is "pain." Arthur Janov a leading proponent of Primal Theory says that repression of pain is the hidden force behind illness and that feeling this pain is the end of suffering. This primal work always has to be returned to prior to any significant movement ahead in development. As such one cannot even really say that it is regressive--I like to think of it as contemporary dissolution to provide the space for new patterns of growth. The old must die for the new to be born.

The following is taken from Why You Get Sick--How You Get Well by Dr. Arthur Janov, and reviews some of the basic theory behind Primal Therapy.

"Repressed pain divides the self in two and each side wars with the other. One is the real self, loaded with needs and pain that are submerged; the other is the unreal self that attempts to deal with the outside world by trying to fulfill unmet needs with neurotic habits or behaviors such as obsessions or addictions. The split of the self is the essence of neurosis and neurosis can kill.

That pain is the result of needs and feelings that have gone unfulfilled in early life. Those early unmet needs create what I call Primal Pain. Coming close to death at birth or feeling unloved as a child are examples of such Pain. The Pain goes unfelt at the time because the body is not equipped to experience it fully and deal with it. When the Pain is too much, it is repressed and stored away. When enough unresolved Pain has occurred, you lose access to your feelings and become neurotic.

We have found ways to measure the ongoing presence and chronic effects of early trauma. We have observed time and again that even though it is not felt, the force of the memory remains in the system, reverberating on lower brain levels and moving against the body wherever it happens to be vulnerable. It shapes our interests, values, motivations and ideas. By reliving these traumas, patients can return back to early events and know with certainty how they formed adult behavior and symptoms.

We have learned in Primal Therapy that irrespective of whether the Pain is manifest in the body or in the mind, the person is not himself; there is a dislocation of function which is global. Both emotional and physical pain deform cells and cause alterations which show up in measurements of vital signs, brain function and chemistry, the immune system, hormones, peripheral blood flow and in a person's behavior. Everything is askew."

Holotropic Breathwork™ is likely to offer a similar perturbation that drugs like ibogaine would, plus raise energy, and metabolism necessary for neural restructuring to resolve the hypertonality of the vagus and Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis. I am not saying that breathing is a form of drug, but that a benign intervention such applied breathing is likely to heal the cerebellum area and reset/rewire the vagus breathing neurology. I see pranayamic breathing as one of the main keys to successful navigation of a kundalini awakening, and also key to purposefully bringing on increased kundalini if so desired. (See Polyvagal Theory)

"Our experiences with Holotropic Breathwork have validated the concept of spiritual emergency both theoretically and practically. They have confirmed that the phenomena that occur spontaneously during transformative crisises are normal constituents of the human psyche and not artificial products of some exotic pathological process. The spectrum of holotropic experiences is practically identical with that of spiritual emergencies; the fact that such simple means as an increased rate of breathing can induce them certainly takes away much of their pathological sting. And indirectly, the therapeutic and transformative potential of Holotropic Breathwork is in full accord with the with the assumption that the same is true for most spiritual emergences." 263, ~ Christina Grof and Stanislav Grof, MD, The Stormy Search For The Self.

Exploring Holotropic Breathwork: Selected Articles from a Decade of the Inner Door Edited by Kylea Taylor has a section on Holotropic Breathwork and kundalini.

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