| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| shawnsmith |
Posted - 10/19/2007 : 10:34:20
While I was doing my TMS reading this morning in the psychology chapter of "The Divided Mind" I read where Dr. Sarno notes that for the unconscious mind there is no concept of time. The conscious mind forgets, but the unconscious mind never forgets. In fact, something that happened many years ago, as far as the unconscious mind is concerned, happened just a few moments ago or is still happening.
Why does one forget then? One reason as that one's mind would not be able to process all of the information and stimuli coming into it if there was no capacity to forget. In fact, if you think about it more deeply, one would go insane. Secondly, some of the pain is way too intense or frightening to consciously deal with. Time, as far as the unconscious mind is concerned, does NOT heal all wounds because, as I stated above, there is no concept of time for the unconscious mind.
What does that all have to do us at a practical level? Well, speaking for myself here, I have - like all other human beings - experienced much anger, sorrow, hurt, disappointment, loss, embarrassment, fear, guilt and anxiety over the course of my life. I personally have written a lot about these emotions in my journaling over the years.
Now remember, the unconscious mind has no concept of time. If this assumption is correct, then for the unconscious mind all of these emotions could - at the unconscious level- all be active at the same time!!!! Yikes!!! That is a lot of intensity to consciously deal with. That would be way too much for the conscious mind to deal with all at once and one would snap or end up killing themselves if they were to be consciously experienced. So, as a protection, most of these intense emotions are repressed and we hold the belief that we forgot all about them. But they are still very much alive in the unconscious mind.
One may ask the question "Why did the pain or other symptoms begin when they did?" My own personal guess - based on personal experience- is that I entered a phase in my life where I became overwhelmed with too many emotions that I could not consciously deal with, so pain was generated to distract me.
I would love to see a discussion on this topic and see what people think.
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Sarno-ize it!
Read chapter 4 of Dr. Sarno's "The Divided Mind." Also chapers 3, 4 and 5 in Dr. Scott Brady's "Pain Free For Life" are very important. |
| 4 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| armchairlinguist |
Posted - 10/19/2007 : 15:26:35
Some of the inner child material I've read has suggested that when we experience a new loss, it activates all our unprocessed (ungrieved) losses. Because no time passes for the unconscious, they have been stuffed away unchanged, but new emotions of the same kind bring them up. I do wonder if this is one of the ways that TMS triggers. I started to have serious problems when my grandmother died about five years ago. This was my first loss of someone close to me to death, but I think it activated a lot of earlier losses unconsciously. I was under a lot of pressure to keep functioning academically and really didn't even realize the magnitude of the current loss.
Anyhow, when old feelings are triggered, if we are aware of it, we can bring them into the conscious mind where time can pass. I think this is also what interaction with the inner child does, and perhaps even 'thinking psychological'. Even though it doesn't necessarily access the feelings directly, it brings them up where they can have some light and air, and clears them out a little.
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It's not 100% belief that's required, but 100% commitment. |
| JohnD |
Posted - 10/19/2007 : 13:27:54
Its been my experience that when emotions aren't processed in a healthy way they become stuck.....so for some reason instead of just feeling garden variety anger, sadness, fear, or guilt it goes way out of balance into hostility, depression, anxiety/panic, or shame/blame. I think it is the latter group of emotions that are symptoms of emotions stuck and the more someone experiences these toxic emotions, the more likely it is that they are becoming unhealthy in all ways - physically (tms, weight problems etc...), emotionally (anxiety disorders etc..), mentally (thinking becomes skewed), and spiritually (I won't get into this one!). If a person never learns how to process through and make sense of various events that occur in their life (and still maintain a healthy self esteem), then issues pile up and the person shows many different symptoms --- TMS in some people, addictions in others, and the list goes on. |
| stanfr |
Posted - 10/19/2007 : 12:52:43
F. Schiffer makes the same point in 'Of two minds'. He argues that one hemisphere is 'stuck' in the past, unable to distinguish between current events and the memories of past traumatic experience. This idea has also been expressed similarly as the 'inner child'.
I'm not sure one can describe the 'conciousness' of the "unconscious" mind, as you have. Another way of looking at it is that the problem is one of accessing stored information, as opposed to distinguishing between subconcious/repressed/conscious. Memory enhancement programs often discuss this issue--they make an analogy to a messy file cabinet, and argue that one can retrieve memorized data better by developing a 'better file system'. In other words, focusing on the question of accessing stored information that's always there in pristine form.
I personally am not fully convinced of the distraction hypothesis, as you know. I know it's a subtle distinction, but i think it could just as easily be described as something that doesn't necessarily distract, but which occupies our thoughts. This is more in line with the Scott Brady metaphor of a volcano erupting. The eruption is most definitely a distraction, but that's not the purpose of the eruption, its simply a consequence of a build-up of repressed emotions. |
| gezondheid |
Posted - 10/19/2007 : 12:38:10
Shawn,
I think not all of these emotions/feelings/thoughts that are down there
sill have the same loading like on the moment they were generated. They have different levels. The ones that are acknowledged and worked through
will not cause much trouble. By consciously dealing with them the loading gets much lesser. The memory is still there, you can even recall the feeling but the major conflict is almost gone.
Of course a lot has never found recognition and in that category lives your potential TMS snake. But not all the time. If that should be the case then we would all be totally lost. We all have had enough problems
to keep us TMS busy for the rest of our lives.
The way i see it is that the external pressures start to shoot their arrows (by tuningfork principal) at your personality traits or stir up
the "sleeping" emotions. In that case the party begins. Pressures can be anything, to busy, to quiet etc. If you can't handle the situation your framework starts to shuffle. By repression you start to blow yourself up.
As you said it is a combination of things. Trigger in my opinion is the momentum of pressure. It enters your system and by recognition it starts to party with your temper or obsessions and on the way picks up
an emotion that is repressed and still is waiting for acknowledgment.
So i don't think that all the emotions in the unconscious have the same impact. The unconscious is also a place where a lot of our history should stay. Thats a part of its function.
Maybe later more. I think this very useful. We can force ourselves to think at different ways about mindbodymedicine.
move-on |
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