GIPT Meets IPA

by Reinhold W. Rausch

The high-speed train from Heidelberg was on time and so was the local one that I had to catch. To my dismay, I discovered that the train I finally caught was going in the wrong direction and I began to get nervous. I was expected at the GIPT and now it was getting late. On top of that, I would have left my bag in the luggage compartment— if it hadn’t have been for some friendly people who had noticed my distress. Thanks to them I arrived in time to meet the happy few who had come to the semiannual meeting of the Gesellschaft für Integrative Primärtherapie in Berlin.

The association has formally existed for twenty years now. During this time it has served generations of German primal therapists with a platform to meet, exchange ideas, organize training programs, host Art Janov in 1997, and even witness quarrels that resulted in some members leaving. The founding members originally came from a Jungian and Transactional Analysis background, which many topped off with experience and education at the Primal Center in LA.

Topics of the spring 2005 meeting were, among others, the actual launching of the4-year education program “Integrative Primärtherpie,” (Anita Timpe); the primal book project (Gaby Luft); the definition of women’s sensuality; and the increased networking within the GIPT. Retreats, get-togethers and all other intensive social activities of the IPA were particularly appreciated, and so was my scholarship for the annual IPA convention. The sheer duration of the IPA convention is impressive, and we found ourselves wishing to have the opportunity here in Germany not only to spend more time together, but also to practice primal techniques more often than the usual dayand-a-half, twice-a-year meetings allow us.

After a period of heated debates about the proper primal way of therapy in the late nineties, the GIPT has lately calmed down a little. It has also made rearrangements regarding the new homepage, training courses and the like. The impression I got was that right now a point has been reached where the group focus is on turning away from the inner wounds that those debates may have caused, and turning outwards again. We aim at strengthening the communication within the GIPT by forming an email group, and the wish has been expressed to communicate with and contribute to the growing primal community.

Furthermore, we discussed Jim Pullaro’s idea to bring primal therapy as at least one serious option into trauma therapy here in Germany, in contrast to the approach that is presently en vogue here—trauma therapy based on rather non-confronting techniques.

Those present at the GIPT meeting greatly welcomed further translations of English primal writings into German and congratulated and encouraged me in joining the IPA convention. Keeping the channels of communication open and the stream of information flowing is vital to organisms as well as organizations. May this process between IPA and GIPT, in time, gain a drive similar to the high-speed train that took me back home the other day.

This article appeared in the Summer 2005 IPA Newsletter.