| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| chickenbone |
Posted - 05/12/2013 : 15:17:18
I just wanted to comment on 3 books that I just finished reading and that helped dramatically in my recovery. Those of you who know me might recall that Ace's keys allowed me to recover from my most problematic TMS symptom, back pain. However, I had a lot of other symptoms, (not all involving pain per se) that would come and go and that were much more difficult to deal with. So I realized that I was not yet completely cured. To give proper credit to Ace's Keys, I must say that the Keys do touch on the most important points for recovery from TMS illness. I needed more detail only because I have so much unresolved trauma in my early childhood, so I had a very persistent case.
I also was able to formulate for myself a workable definition of "cure" from TMS and the trauma/nervous illness from which it resulted. My definition is: Make a list of ALL the physical symptoms (sensations), including, but not limited to pain, that you think are or might be TMS related. Be completely honest with yourself. (If you leave out a symptom, you are sure to be reminded of it soon because that is surely the next one that your illness will give you.) Then sit in a quite place as if you are about meditate. Think about each symptom, one at a time. If you are thinking about a symptom or feeling, drill down by concentrating hard on discovering the physical sensation underneath the uncomfortable symptom or feeling. There will always be one there. Feel intimacy with and curiosity about the physical sensation. What happens if you dare it to get worse or consciously try to make it worse? If this evokes fear, recoiling or dread, than you have not recovered, there is more work to do. On the other hand, if you can easily adopt an attitude of comfortable intimacy with the physical sensation and an attitude of circumspection, realizing that this is your friend who gives you a "heads up" when there is self-help work to do, then you have recovered. No symptom will ever own you again. You will be your own master. So this is what I am in the process of doing. It has worked well so far with 3 of my symptoms, I have about 4 more to work on.
First of all, "Hope and Help for Your Nerves", by Claire Weekes has got it all. She understands perfectly what causes this illness, how it develops, and what needs to be done to recover. I had recovered from 2 of my worst symptoms before reading her book and realized that what I did to recover is exactly what she has described in the book. It is utterly amazing how absolutely right on she is. However, I believe that many people perhaps need professional help with her method, especially if there is trauma in their story. This little book has all of it.
Peter Levine's books are especially good and also helped me very much. He is remarkably insightful about trauma, in particular. He really focuses on and deals effectively with the PHYSICAL SENSATIONS that lie beneath pain and other uncomfortable physical symptoms and feelings. He has really nailed the origins and lifelong effects of trauma. "In an Unspoken Voice" may be a little difficult for the average person to get through, a lot of it seems written for Professionals in the field, but anything you can get out of it is worthwhile and bound to help. His second book, "Freedom from Pain" is written for the average person for self-help. It distills a lot of the ideas from the first book. If you are interested, I would read "Freedom from Pain" first and later, if you feel you need more detail, then read "In an unspoken Voice".
I want to stress that the 3 books I spoke of all deal with the subject using a bottom-up as opposed to a top-down approach. I feel that TMS, because it is largely a unconscious phenomenon, usually needs a bottom-up approach, especially in severe or persistent cases, where some type of trauma plays a part. It is useful to think of your whole body as your unconscious for this purpose. This makes sense because all of our autonomic bodily process come from deep inside our bodies. I don't wish to say that a top-down approach, such as CBT cannot be helpful, but because I believe that TMS largely results from our dis-owning, or dissociation with many of our unwanted, uncomfortable, but medically insignificant bodily sensations that we have been completely unaware of for so long. When the conscious mind becomes reacquainted with these and develops intimate awareness of them, is when permanent healing happens. Fear and bodily sensations MUST be separated for recovery to take place.
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| 17 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| alix |
Posted - 05/16/2013 : 00:20:08
Peter Levine has another book that I find excellent: "Healing Trauma". The Apple iTunes version is great with all the audio exercises integrated seamlessly with the text.
"Freedom from Pain" is good too but it was co-written with Maggie Phillips and does not go into the trauma aspect as much as in "Healing Trauma".
Robert Scaer that we discussed in other threads on EMDR was healed from his chronic pain problems by Peter Levine himself (they are virtually neighbors). |
| plum |
Posted - 05/14/2013 : 04:30:51
quote:
Originally posted by Ace1
CB. I do have to say though that the mental strain is really the primary problem, bc when that is high, no matter what you do with your body, you will never be able to "relax" enough to help the symptoms. So, primary treatment should always be towards the mind first.
Ace1, I'm not sure what your experience of trauma is, be that personal or in helping others, so for clarification, do you really believe your approach is enough to deal with traumatic events? (Particularly with reference to dissociation.) |
| chickenbone |
Posted - 05/13/2013 : 18:11:11
Thanks, Plum. I hope the book helps you. You and I have had some serious trauma. I think Levine is really good on trauma.
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| plum |
Posted - 05/13/2013 : 15:32:26
chickenbone, you're a star.
Thanks so much for these thoughtful, practical reviews. I adore Claire Weekes and may have lost my mind had it not been for her wonderful voice. Her books are life-changing, and her advice is something I've extended to the care of my boy with gratifying results. She is a joy.
I have a copy of Freedom from Pain, which my mum bought for me but I didn't really read. I was passing through a phase of Sarno fundamentalism (thanks Darko) at the time and shunned Levine's body-oriented focus. Such folly! I dug it out and read a little and realised how utterly relevant his self-regulatory approach is. I was also struck by how well his approach resonates with Ace1's Keys. Once again I suspect this boils down to semantics but does it really matter when each method is complementary? Levine is such a gentle soul and that is really important when trauma is a factor. Doubtless this is another reason why I treasure your endorsement.
Great to read positive reviews from someone who's healing at the deepest levels.
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| Ace1 |
Posted - 05/13/2013 : 12:05:16
CB. I do have to say though that the mental strain is really the primary problem, bc when that is high, no matter what you do with your body, you will never be able to "relax" enough to help the symptoms. So, primary treatment should always be towards the mind first. |
| chickenbone |
Posted - 05/13/2013 : 11:36:17
Excellent, Ace, you understand it perfectly. I like the word "strain" when used to describe the main cause of the pain because it sounds "whole body" instead of purely mental. We need to realize that it is not just the mind that strains, but the body also. I didn't realize that Dr. Bates was so insightful. He sees that, if you bring these previously unconscious "strains" to consciousness and learn to control them, then you would quickly lose the fear of them. Levine calls fear "the killer of life". Therefore pain or strain coupled with fear is deadly because of the endless loop you get yourself into. Levine says we need to learn self-regulation, which means that we learn to regulate our emotional and sensory experiences to calm ourselves so that the fear and rage systems in the amygdala deactivate. This is the same as you describe in your keys. |
| Ace1 |
Posted - 05/13/2013 : 10:50:56
Thanks Chickenbone for your thoughtful reviews. Why btw, is your name chickenbone? Ok Interesting topic. I think the best way to think of TMS is strain. Really this helps sum it up, which is why 2 people in the same scenerio and lifestyle will have 2 different outcomes. So if someone is "strained" and that is the cause of the symptoms, how would one get rid of the symptoms. Pause for a second and think about it. Fighting the symptoms (which are there in the first place because of strain), will only make it worse, but cannot make it better. So, slowly and gradually trying to do normal things, without a strain response (fear, intensity) would be the solution. Now if the strain is a habit, it is hard to break the longer its been there. Conditioned reactions are also important. I hate to put a more advanced technique down, bc it make some beginners worse if they try this, but I want to put it down to illustrate my point. If someone trys to make their pain worse, by straining more on purpose, it can help the person get better faster. Why? Well, if you can make you pain worse at will with your mind, you know EXACTLY the feeling of the strain that is causing your pain, and therefore you can be better at avoiding it through your normal activity. You can turn it on and off at will, like a faucet. Dr Bates is the genius who figured this out. I hope this explaination helps. |
| chickenbone |
Posted - 05/12/2013 : 21:54:49
pspa, maybe you would have to read the book to understand because I am not sure I can explain it to your satisfaction, but is good to see you so curious about it.
What Ace1 is talking about in the keys is correct. You do not want to focus on the physical symptoms IN THE SAME WAY YOU HAVE BEEN, by fearing them, worrying about them, running to doctors for a fix, etc. That is perfectly compatible with Sarno. That is perfectly right. What Levine (and Perhaps Weekes too) is talking about is completely changing the way in which you think about the symptoms, by discovering the underlying sensations that may be causing you pain (for example, unconscious bracing, tightening and muscle constriction can cause pain if you are doing it enough, but might not know you are doing it). So this is a psychological approach even though you are addressing the physical sensations (as opposed to sensations that your brain has labeled as feelings or emotions). Don't forget that all physical sensations get interpreted by the brain. You are resisting the urge to engage the higher parts of your brain because you want to become acquainted with the lower parts of your brain and body. In fact, the body may actually have a brain of it's own, the vagus nerve, that connects the brain stem to various internal organs. What you do is to adopt a curious rather than fearful attitude toward the pain. But as happens in normal life, we tend to fear what we don't know and understand. This way, we familiarize ourselves with these alien and previously frightening sensations and realize they are only sensations that have no medical significance. We begin to break the pain - fear - more pain - more fear cycle that keeps us trapped. We may be able to realize that we are habitually and unconsciously adopting certain postures, for example. For some reason, when you focus on these, they tend to fade, probably because you are not generating the fear that they need as fuel. Levine calls this self-regulation. I probably have not explained it very well, but maybe you can at least see why these ideas are firmly in the psychology camp. |
| pspa123 |
Posted - 05/12/2013 : 21:18:19
It seems different than Sarno because you describe focusing on the pain, challenging it, etc. Sarno says to focus not on the physical but on the psychological. Maybe it's semantics, maybe it's a different approach, I don't know.
Ace #3 says not to challenge pain, whereas Levine seems to say challenge pain to get worse. Ace says: "Worrying about or preoccupation with the symptoms (challenging, constantly evaluating them, reacting to them, or trying to make them better) makes you lose your ability to see that you're emotionally uncomfortable."
I make no judgment on whether it's a good method, just observing that to me anyhow it seems a different approach. |
| chickenbone |
Posted - 05/12/2013 : 20:31:26
Yes, peregrinus, I also learned EFT that way and never realized the importance of it. I am going to try EFT, incorporating some of the things I have picked up from Claire Weekes and Peter Levine and see if it works better for me. I realized, after reading them and experiencing it on my own, that challenging the symptoms to get worse may at first instant seem to make the symptoms worse, but then, ironically, they tend to get better. This is because the only way to let go of fear is to become more intimately acquainted with the sensations causing the physical discomfort. Once you notice this happening, the fear lessens so the symptoms lessen and you start to develop confidence to live your life WITH the pain (not hating and fearing it and not thinking your life will be wonderful if you did not have it, believe me, it won't) Your mind will soon lose interest in it. As long as you resist the pain/symptoms, they will persist. I also think this concept is behind some of Ace's Keys. It maybe this concept that is behind the step in EFT that asks you to feel where the sensation is and to try to make it worse. Most of the time you will find that trying to make symptoms worse only makes them better.
pspa, I guess I don't understand why you think this is incompatible with Sarno. |
| Peregrinus |
Posted - 05/12/2013 : 19:20:37
quote:
Originally posted by chickenbone
If you are thinking about a symptom or feeling, drill down by concentrating hard on discovering the physical sensation underneath the uncomfortable symptom or feeling. There will always be one there. Feel intimacy with and curiosity about the physical sensation. What happens if you dare it to get worse or consciously try to make it worse? ...if you can easily adopt an attitude of comfortable intimacy with the physical sensation and an attitude of circumspection, ... then you have recovered.
Chickenbone:
I've been looking at Robert Smith's EFT videos and part of his technique is for patients to feel where the pain is and to try to make it worse. He then does his tapping thing and returns with the same question. Have you seen any of his videos? |
| dgreen97 |
Posted - 05/12/2013 : 19:11:07
thanks for the reviews chickenbone youve given me even more motivation now to continue reading claire weekes |
| pspa123 |
Posted - 05/12/2013 : 18:46:51
His index doesnt mention sarno at all which is odd as most chronic pain books do even if they differ in approach. Or maybe the index just didnt pick up the reference. |
| chickenbone |
Posted - 05/12/2013 : 17:46:50
No, I don't think this is what he means. When he speaks of "body", he is referring to the whole organism, of which the brain is part of, so that there is not really so much of a distinction between mind and body. This is what I was getting at by suggesting that the "unconscious" is just as much a body as a mind concept. |
| pspa123 |
Posted - 05/12/2013 : 17:08:36
Interesting. If I am understanding it, this seems somewhat different than the "think psychological" approach (Ace Key 3 for example) which teaches not to move towards pain/symptoms but to use pain/symptoms as an impetus to consider what is going on in one's emotional life. |
| chickenbone |
Posted - 05/12/2013 : 16:56:16
Yes, pspa. The idea that the body has the power to heal us is extremely important. Dr. Lavine argues that you do not need to use your conscious mind to go digging around in the murky past, but by becoming intimately familiar with your present bodily sensations that underlie your pain and uncomfortable symptoms, your body can guide you to remember only that which needs to be attended to for healing.
He argues that where there is persistent chronic pain that does not respond to top-down methods, there is often trauma underneath. Remember, trauma does not necessarily mean abuse. He speaks a lot about medical procedures that need to be performed on children younger than 5 years of age. I know, I was hospitalized before I was 5. Just because someone was not trying to traumatize you, does not mean it did not happen. Dr Levine believes that studies on how animals recover from a close call in the wild show that they seem to go through a programmed routine, the completion of which insures the the animal is able to exist fully in the present again and not become traumatized. Apparently, this programmed, natural response to trauma often gets thwarted in human beings, especially children. he believes that traumatized individuals get "stuck" in either the freeze/shutdown stage of this natural healing routine where they often don't even feel their bodies normally, or in the hyper-arousal stage where their sympathetic nervous system stays in a state of constant arousal, regardless of the external environment. I remember, after certain traumatic incidents, that I would sometimes go 2 days practically without eating. Friends would ask me why I did not feel hungry. I was not feeling a lot of my normal bodily sensations. Now I suffer from the opposite, hyper-arousal. Hence, my sleeping problems.
I have had much success with his methods. A TMS symptom of mine that I only get when really stressed, like when traveling, just visited me again recently. Cold symptoms and asthma, with no cold. I was able to calm this down, not by fearing it or recoiling from it which would be mu usual reaction, but by moving toward it, experiencing it fully and being curious about it, sort of meditating on it. I actually tried consciously to make it worse and you know what, I couldn't. In fact, it got better soon after. However, it still comes back, but the better I get at cuddling up to it, the more it fades. It is ironic, but true.
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| pspa123 |
Posted - 05/12/2013 : 15:49:00
The subtitle to Freedom from Pain is interesting: discover your BODY's power to overcome physical pain. CB can you say a little more about his approach? |
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