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hooray
USA
4 Posts |
 Posted - 10/18/2005 : 21:51:43
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Hearing about other people's experiences with TMS on this board helped me with my own recovery, so I thought I would share my own.
I first heard about TMS through my physician about 2.5 months ago. He suggested I look into it based on my personality, medical history and the fact that it is essentially a win/win proposition. I meet the typical TMS profile except that I am very young: my symptoms started two years ago when I was around 19. I have also always been extremely active, playing numerous sports competitively.
When I arrived at college I began having shoulder pain, which I associated with lifting weights. So I stopped lifting weights.
Soon after I developed a persistant tightness and pain in my upper back. I began to dread going to class, sitting in the hard plastic chairs seemed to aggrevate it more than anything else.
I did the standard stuff and more: chiropractor, acupuncture, massage, physical therapy, osteopath. All to no avail.
I did get some results from one physical therapist, but, ahem, suddenly I had great pain and tightness around the tendons in my knee, escalating up into my hamstrings. Then it was my other knee--then both.
This sequence of events lasted about 2 years.
I read the MB prescription first, then visited a TMS associated psychologist twice. I also listened to Dr. Schecter's tapes and watched the Sarno videos. (I would recommend both the first two, and not the second.) And I came to believe it, though not dogmaticaly, on a rational level.
At this point I was having some relief from pain, but it was intermittant and I still felt as though I had no control over what was causing it.
The important link for me, which I don't think is discussed enough, was an intuitive or visceral apprehension of the nature of what was going on. This occured one day after I was lifting weights. My back felt racked, as it often would. However, I also had a bee sting from earlier that day. The sting started to itch intensely and continued to itch for about a minute. At which point I realized...my back felt fine. It wasn't just that I had been distracted and hadn't felt the pain, there was no tightness or pain there!
Since this point (as well as having the "posture doesn't matter" truism reiterated again and again) my back pain has been not entirely gone, but I feel as though I have a great deal of control over it.
With my legs it clicked when I had played basketball. THe whole time I played they felt fine, great in fact. And then, that night, I felt a tingling, then the tightness and pain. It was so obvious that this was entirely arbitrary, that my body was just fine! I mean, my knees hurt when I'm lying in bed and not when I'm pounding them on a hard wood floor?
I guess the thing is that I think this sort of semi-rational apprehension is what really made the difference. I needed the intellectual structure there to fit my own experiences into, but I think the actual experiential learning is equally essential; and obviously you can't just get this by reading a book--you have to experience it.
Other things that I think have helped me: I refer to whatever causes my pain as my 'little demon' (or 'you little f#&*er). I don't know why this helps but I talked to my doctor about it and he said that is consistent with his experience and what he knows. I also took the attitude that I was just fine physically (which I was, apparently) and continued to tell myself this whenever the pain started: "I am fine."
Also I want to say that I, like I imagine many others, are turned off by the fact that there is so much Freudian psychology in a lot of the TMS literature. You don't have to actively believe in this part of the theory to get results, though. While I accepted that my mind and my emotions were causing my pain, I didn't buy into the whole bit about egos and ids and the internal child (mainly because whenever I have studied Freud the professors have just ripped his theories apart). What I was willing to accept was that we just don't have any great explanation yet--not because there's not one out there, but because our Cartesian medical system is so ignorant about mind-body matters.
Hope this helps someone out there.
Keep the faith. |
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n/a
560 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2005 : 05:40:46
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Note that Sarno did not know about Freud's ideas until after he discovered TMS theory. He was not out to prove or disprove Freud, as he did not know his ideas, but when he found out afterwards Freud's ideas fit with Sarno's clinical experience.
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hooray
USA
4 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2005 : 10:58:48
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| Thanks, I was referring to the way that he couches his experience in a Freudian explanation. The point I wanted to make was just that for those of us who this rubs the wrong way, it shouldn't be a deterrant to trying the other TMS methods. |
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johnnyg
USA
138 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2005 : 12:13:38
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hooray:
I'd be curious to know how your professors "ripped" Freud's theories apart since his greatest contribution, the "discovery" of the unconscious mind, cannot be proved or disproved by other theories or observation. He may not have gotten everything right, but there is plenty of experience to show the "reality" of the unconscious mind (have you ever lapsed while driving and don't remember getting from point A to point B?) The Freud bashers are people who are basically behaviorists who hopped on the hate Freud bandwagon because it's hip to bash him today. When I was in college I thought it was hogwash and barely paid attention to Freud or Jung. Now I know the magnitude of the contributions they made. |
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cindy_gail
22 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2005 : 13:51:47
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horay,
I love your story and found it inspirational. I teach in the counseling profession and agree that while there have been many holes to poke in Freud's theories, foundationally there is much merit. And for me, even more so with Jung. Thank you for sharing.
cindy_gail |
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johnnyg
USA
138 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2005 : 14:16:13
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| I can understand why some may be apprehensive of psychotherapy, but just because pretentious intellectuals poke holes in some of Freud's theories, we have to use different terminology or discard some of it, as if any of us is in a position to determine what can be discarded and what can't be. Let's just do what L Ron Hubbard did and pretend they're not even really Freud's ideas. Get over it peeps, the basic idea of TMS therapy is rooted in Freudian psychology. Why aren't those overpaid tenured boneheads revolutionizing the field if they're so smart. |
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Suz
559 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2005 : 14:32:22
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| Fantastic, Hooray. This was a pleasure to read and so helpful. I had not thought of all the other little things I have been doing to help my recovery. I also refer to it as a little demon/devil or use rather stronger language. I then laugh at it and tell myself I am fine. I have also noticed that my pain is not there at all if I am extremely tired - it is always anything that takes my focus. |
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cindy_gail
22 Posts |
Posted - 10/20/2005 : 15:39:31
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| Well JohnnyG, I guess I'm one of those tenured overpaid boneheads. The thing is, we boneheads read a lot and keep current. Here I am expressing my non repressed feelings of -- anger? Whatever your profession is, I would expect you wouldn't like people to take pot shots about things they don't really know from the inside out. Freud was one of those boneheads afterall, as was Jung, et al. |
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johnnyg
USA
138 Posts |
Posted - 10/20/2005 : 15:49:31
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| Yeah, but Freud had a model that explained a large portion of reality. Critizing is fine for the classroom, but adds little to the bank of knowledge--and we here need practical knowledge that works, as do Freud's theories. I should have said eggheads not boneheads since you all are obviously very smart. Anyway, as a lawyer, all I get are potshots from people who don't really know from the inside out, I know what it feels like. BTW, glad you had a sense of humor about that, it was a rant I couldn't resist:)) |
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another two cents worth of experience
