The members of Atlantis were known as The Screamers by locals in Burtonport for their practice of primal therapy. The idea of primal screaming was developed and popularised by
Arthur Janov, especially in his 1970 book
The Primal Scream, the goal being to expunge and prevent
repressed emotion. Janov's theory focuses on repressed childhood pain. At Atlantis this was extended to a general, radical emotional honesty, where members would yell at one another. Parts of this approach, which James viewed as therapeutic, also derived from the ideas of
Wilhelm Reich. James was a client of Reichian psychotherapist in London before moving to Ireland and Boadella's poems and letters to James feature in her first book,
Room to Breathe. In an interview for
RTÉ show
The Live Mike, James claimed that the aggression of this approach was both helpful and healthy, and a counterpoint to a society that "puts a premium on mediocrity and niceness, and being sweet and being polite". The hostility of the sessions could be intense, with members of the commune pushing one another into being ever more harassing and angry towards one another. On Inishfree and in Colombia, Atlantis focused also on self-sufficiency. In Colombia, they established an organic farm and focused increasingly on ecological issues. In an interview in 2002, James stated Atlantis's goals as "self-sufficiency, to show ourselves and everyone else that life is possible without technology, without damaging and raping the planet" and stressed the importance of physical labour, saying that "therapy, sexual freedom for children, no school, political involvement, all flow organically from this basic premise". The members of the commune have also practised non-monogamy and "
free love". The "sexual freedom for children" was elaborated on by James in an interview with
The Independent in 2000, where she is quoted as saying: "We don't set an age at which a child is a sexual creature. If they want to sleep with each other at nine or 10, that's fine". == Atlantis books ==