Telephone Primalling

QUESTION: I don't have any buddies in my town, but I do have a couple of friends not too far away that I can phone. How do you primal over the phone?

ANSWER: For me it's like this: I ask the other person just to listen, and not to say anything to take me out of the feeling. Then I start talking about whatever is bothering me in the present (the trigger). Sometimes if the person on the other end makes sympathetic sounds that mirror my feeling, it helps me get in further, without distracting me from my train of thought.

It's usually the rule that the person "sitting for you" doesn't say anything while you are crying. But a week or two ago I did a phone session with my therapist's locum.

We booked the time, but when I got onto the line all I could say was, "Hi Pieter, I'm really hurting," and then I couldn't say anything more - I was crying too much. He just said very softly, "It's okay, Pat, I'm here, I'm with you." He said it so softly it was just in the background, and feeling his caring made me cry harder and deepened the primal.

Well, like I said, I start to talk about what is happening in the present, and that usually gets me either angry or crying. When I am solidly connected to the feeling, I often switch and start to talk "to" the person who has triggered me, as if they were there, and that takes me deeper into the crying.

At that point my mind is unconsciously "scanning" my childhood for a similar scene (one where the feeling is the same). When that connects, I start talking "about" what happened in childhood. I "feel around" and follow where the crying goes deeper.

Suddenly, instead of talking "about" mommy or daddy or whoever, I find I am talking "to" them. Again I feel around and follow where the crying goes deeper.

If there is first-line pain, crying "mommy" may turn to "mama" and then I may get to baby crying where there are no words at all - just baby cries and sometimes choking etc. If it's a deep birth primal, I roll off the chair onto the floor (though I still usually manage to keep the phone receiver in my hand!).

After the crying is over, my buddy may make a comment or two, but mostly I just tell them what I have been reliving, and what the connections are. Occasionally my buddy may intervene if I am halfway through the primal and I stop crying. She might say, "You sounded very angry when you said ___. What was happening then?" That may take me back into it.

There are all kinds of "techniques" that one can use to help people get into their feelings, but the one that helps me the most is to know and to feel that the person at the other end of the line really cares. It's the most powerful primal tool there is!

Pat Törngren is a veteran primaller from the Cape Town area of South Africa, an avid primal community builder, and the list owner and moderator of the on-line Primal Support Group.

This article appeared in the Fall 2002 IPA Newsletter.