According to Janov, Primal Pains are imprinted in the lower brain first, then later the limbic system, and still later intellectual defenses are formed by the cortex simply because this is the sequence of neurological development. The therapy therefore occurs in the reverse sequence: "There is no way to go deep without first going shallow." In primal therapy, medication is prescribed for some "overloaded" patients, so they do not overshoot into first-line pains that they are not ready to feel, thereby allowing them to feel the more recent pains first.