a therapeutic technique in which the client is encouraged to reexperience traumatic early childhood (even peri- and prenatal) experiences and react vocally and physically to release the psychic pain associated with them. The technique, sometimes popularly and erroneously known as primal scream therapy, has received little scientific validation and is not advocated by most psychotherapists or counselors. [developed in the 1960s and 1970s by U.S. psychologist Arthur Janov (1924– )]