"It's never too late to have a happy childhood" - a quote from Tom Robbins novel, "Still Life with Woodpecker".
Arthur Janov was born to Conrad Janov, a butcher and truck driver, and Anne (Corey) Janov. He grew up in Los Angeles and attended Los Angeles High School, graduating in 1943. That year he entered the U.S. Navy and served in World War II. After his discharge in 1946, he entered the University of California, Los Angeles and majored in social sciences. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1949 and stayed on for graduate work. For his graduate thesis he did research at the Los Angeles Veterans Hospital. After receiving his Master's Degree in Social Work in 1951, he entered private practice, and was concurrently on the staff of the Los Angeles Children's Hospital from 1952 to 1955.
During 1949-1951 Arthur Janov was a member of the jazz ensemble the Psychopathic Syncopators, at the UCLA music therapy program.
In January 1967, after 17 years of conventional therapeutic work, Dr. Arthur Janov had an incident with a patient (Ray) that led to a crucial psycho-therapeutic breakthrough. Ray told Janov about an absurd theater performance in London 1966 in which the artist Raphael Montañez Ortiz, dressed in large diapers, screaming "Mommy" and "Daddy", and vomiting in a plastic bag, asked the audience to do the same.
Dr. Arthur Janov suggested that Ray should try to cry out for his parents. Ray refused at first, but later gave in and was soon writhing on the floor in agony and making a piercing, deathlike scream. Janov repeated the sequence with other patients and began to develop his primal theory and primal therapy. The basic tenants of this new approach were discussed in his book, "The Primal Scream," published in 1970.
In 1972 Dr. Arthur Janov was making broad claims for cures in all sorts of disorders and deviations including homosexuality, violence, murder, drug addiction and psychoses. His belief that he had the only valid cure for mental illness led him into what some critics believed were extravagant claims.