Did Yoko love John? | Page 23 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Ron Nasty said
If you’ve got a few minutes, stumbled across this interesting essay:

Let Me Take You Down in a Cyn Sandwich: The Profoundly Paradoxical Mind of John Lennon

By Brian Murphy, it’s a 16 page PDF (17, but the first page is title) review of 7 books about John. I thought some fascinating observations on the myth vs. the reality, and its importance. It seemed to fit in this thread. Well worth a read I think.  

Hello @Ron Nasty, it’s good to see you’re still around. I’ve just read the PDF you recommended; yes, it’s good, thank you. All the bits and pieces I’d read and heard over the years (or almost all of them) put together in an article. After reading it I feel even more empathy with Julian. There’s something new though: the article hints at John’s not being a good father to Sean either –does anybody know anything about that?

Leaving a therapy half way is a pretty dangerous thing. 

Expert Textpert said
If I remember correctly, John yelled in Sean’s ear once and now he has hearing damage because of it.

It’s interesting that Alfred left John when he was five, John left Julian when he was five, and John was shot when Sean was five. They say that parents pass trauma on to their children if they haven’t dealt with it.

John is interesting to me not only because I can identify with certain aspects of his personality […] 

John probably needed many years of psychotherapy or something equivalent to that in order to untangle the bundle of subconscious anger, fear, and frustration he felt.  

O Boogie said
Leaving a therapy half way is a pretty dangerous thing.  

@Expert Textpert, @O Boogie

Only one thing to add: when I was studying in college I read this article by a psychoanalyst (I can’t for the life of me remember his name); he said that whatever in our lives that we can’t analyze through therapy, understand and come to terms with, will eventually become our Destiny. Sadly, I can identify with John in that respect.

As for leaving his Primal Scream therapy, I remember posting something about it ages ago; a few thoughts that passed unnoticed by anybody. If I can find them I’ll add a link.

XXXXX

John & Janov both said something like he (John) could understand the source of his pain, but he left before he could put the understanding to use.

According to Janov, John left at his most vulnerable. 

John humiliated her, just like he humiliated Cynthia during & after the divorce. I don’t think you can ever get past something like that.

EDIT: John couldn’t do anything (good or bad) without some sort of a public announcement. Because of that, someone is bound to get hurt, and a lot have. It is the result of his need for attention.

I guess Yoko didn’t go all “awwwww, baby” like I would have when he made faces like this:

…that might’ve kept him on his toes and interested 

“Why don’t my bleeding charms work on this woman!? Oh Paaauuuulllll!” 

Hello everybody; I’m copying and pasting an old comment of mine (September 18^th 2014):

“I’m copying from Wikipedia:

“The musician John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, went through primal therapy in 1970. A copy of the just-released The Primal Scream arrived in the mail at Tittenhurst Park (sources differ about who sent the book). Lennon was impressed, and he requested primal therapy to be started at Tittenhurst. Arthur Janov and his first wife, Vivian Janov, went to Tittenhurst in March 1970 to start the therapy, which continued in April in Los Angeles. Arthur Janov went to Tittenhurst after giving instructions in advance about the isolation period and giving instructions to Lennon to be separated from Ono. Lennon and Ono had three weeks of intensive treatment in England before Janov returned to Los Angeles, where they had four months of therapy.”

“According to some sources, Lennon ended primal therapy after four months. Arthur Janov later said, “They cut the therapy off just as it started, really….We were just getting going….We had opened him up, and we didn’t have time to put him back together again.” Another source states that Lennon and Ono broke off treatment after continuous disputes between Ono and Janov.“

“Lennon commented after therapy, “I still think that Janov’s therapy is great, you know, but I do not want to make it a big Maharishi thing” and “I just know myself better, that’s all. I can handle myself better. That Janov thing, the primal scream and so on, it does affect you, because you recognize yourself in there… It was very good for me. I am still ‘primal’ and it still works.” and “I no longer have any need for drugs, the Maharishi or the Beatles. I am myself and I know why.”

 “Shortly after therapy, Lennon produced his album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. (Ono recorded a parallel album, Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band from her experiences; both albums were released on the same day on the Apple record label.) Lennon’s album featured a number of songs that were directly affected by his experience in therapy, including “Remember”, “I Found Out“, “Isolation“, “God“, “Mother“, “My Mummy’s Dead“, and “Working Class Hero“.”

Well, the first thing I’d like to point out is that John did have a therapist. The second is that Janov gave instructions to John to be separated from Yoko. The third, that Yoko had problems with Janov. The fourth, that they cut the process off after just four months –and therapeutic processes take much longer. The process was never completed. The fifth, that John claimed he didn’t need The Beatles, or the Maharishi, or drugs any more –yet we do know he kept on doing drugs after his therapy, and he remained ‘addicted’ to Yoko.

I’ll leave it to you guys to draw your own conclusions.”

Nobody replied to this post, at least not while I was an active member of the BB; then I… took a sabbatical, kind of. I was hoping somebody would connect the dots, but nobody did. I will, now:

Yoko, in my opinion, sabotaged John’ therapy, either consciously or subconsciously. She argued constantly with Janov. She didn’t like the idea of John being separated from her. Either consciously or subconsciously she knew that if John completed the process he wouldn’t rely on her so much, he wouldn’t be so needy. He wouldn’t call her “mother”. And she didn’t like that.

Am I saying that Yoko manipulated the situation and manipulated John so that he stopped the process? Yes; either consciously or without realizing she was doing it. Am I saying that Yoko never loved John? No, absolutely not, by no means. Possessiveness can be part of love –at least in some cases. But maybe if John hadn’t left the process “at his most vulnerable” (thanks @O Boogie), he would have lived a very different life.

Whether she loved him or not, her behaviour is questionable. At the same time, I don’t know what were her problems with Janov – was it that John was moving on from one big thing (Yoko) to the next big thing (Janov), especially when it was really helping him, or was it that Janov was using John’s fame for his own purposes or some such thing (because I recall John saying something like Janov wanted to film a part of the therapy or something) ?

If it is the latter, then more power to Yoko, but if it is the former, it is something quite sick and twisted. Yes, John was a grown up man who could take his own decisions and be held responsible for it, but it’s still sick and twisted.

Nice to see you back, Oudis. I wasn’t around when you were active previously, but I hope you’re back again for a long second innings 😉