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On the Significance of the Therapeutic "Window" or Healing "Zone"
Therefore, in the primal viewpoint, not going deep enough at critical points can also leave the client "retraumatized". The counselor has opened the client up, but has not been able to bring about resolution due to the therapist's own fear and discomfort of intense fear, anger, or sadness. Good trauma therapy has a balance between evoking enough intensity and also being gentle in the right places. Contrary to what some believe, the Primal Process does believe in and, in fact, honors the notion of "therapeutic zone or window". This is a trauma treatment construct which postulates that there is a "zone" or "window" in which the client is in an optimal or preferred autonomic nervous system state---not too activated or too relaxed.
Within this zone, hypothetically, the client is neurobiologically most capable of integrating traumatic sensory overload. Primal Theory has not only been in agreement with this concept for years, but unbeknownst to many, actually was one of the first therapies to propose this "zone" as essential to quality treatment. Also, the body has its own inherent wisdom and will regulate internally the amount of access to traumatic material. This phenomenon is repeated time and again in the therapeutic process and a skilled trauma therapist knows how to read this natural "braking" system and not push the client beyond the point of integration.
To repeat, the modulation and titration of client's intensity, affect, sensations, and regression levels has been a therapeutic technique of primal therapy for decades. It is not the therapeutic zone or window that is in debate, but rather the "size" of the window. Philosophically, this debate has been on-going in the various trauma treatment modalities in regards to this point. Primal Therapy, in early years, pushed the envelope in regards to the "zone" and hence primal therapists were able to witness the outer edges and parameters far more than practitioners of any of the other modern psychotherapies.
Therefore, an experienced, trained primal therapist is very comfortable with all levels of intensity and yet is highly skilled at modulating affect at the critical points when needed. In otherwords, it is absolutely critical that the therapist does not have unresolved fear or anger issues. Therapists with these issues all too frequently can and do interfere, impede, or shutdown where the client is organismically trying to go to heal. Or, therapists may also act out these issues by going to the other extreme "pushing" clients too far, too fast, thus overloading their circuitry and preventing integration. In essence, unresolved issues on the part of the therapist can be damaging to the clients in either direction.
In summary, while it is true that the primal process is a deeper one and the therapeutic window or zone larger, it is precisely this skill to be able to tolerate and work with the varying degrees of intensity that allows for more progress and deeper connections…..ultimately resulting in a more complete healing to happen.
To conclude: True Primal Therapy does not "retraumatize" a client. In fact,the modulation of emotions and intensity has been a part of the theory for decades. Yet, trained primal therapists are typically more adept at handling and allowing traumatic memories to surface while always mindful of titrating the client's experience without "ripping them off of where the need to go" ! This is a delicate balance in which the primal process, correctly facilitated, is sufficiently evocative and, at the same time, client's routinely report is also amazingly gentle.
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