Bioenergetic therapists offer individual therapy as well as workshops. They tend to act as teachers, pointing out very bluntly how a client's physical rigidities reflect rigid qualities of personality: "Your chest muscles are this tense because you have been defending yourself so long, like a boxer," or "Your jaw muscles ache because you've been biting back angry impulses." Because of its physical approach to human emotions, bioenergetics is sometimes regarded as the West's therapeutic version of yoga. (For a discussion of yoga, see Chapter 15.) {163} _Applications of Bioenergetics_ Bioenergetics appears to be most useful for people with any of these characteristics: * Their feelings are markedly inhibited, or they feel deadened emotionally. * They feel impaired sexually or do not experience orgasm for nonphysical reasons. * They are rigid, uptight, and inclined to be obsessive perfectionists. * They have pent-up feelings of anger, hostility, or grief that are in need of an outlet. Bioenergetics is not the treatment of choice when deeper insight and self-knowledge are important. Bioenergetic therapists are not in general especially concerned with a client's personal history, family and work environment, or specific adaptation problems. PRIMAL THERAPY _For individuals who continue to suffer from childhood pain._ Arthur Janov (1924- ) was psychoanalytically trained as a clinical psychologist and psychiatric social worker. He had been practicing for seventeen years when a shy and withdrawn client in a group therapy session let out a piercing, primitive scream. The inhibited client experienced a sense of release and insight. This event fascinated Janov and eventually transformed his professional perspective. He developed an approach to therapy that encourages patients to re-experience repressed painful memories from childhood. Janov calls these _primal_ pains: they come about when a child's emotional needs repeatedly are not met. The inner suffering that results is suppressed; the pain cannot be dissipated. It takes energy to continue to block out painful feelings. The constant expenditure of energy then shows up in conscious tension. Janov came to believe that emotional problems in adults stem from {164} their unwillingness to experience feelings that a child would find crushing but--though painful--can now be faced. When primal pain is faced, Janov claims, individuals gain a degree of freedom and maturity they could not otherwise achieve.