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stanfr
USA
268 Posts |
 Posted - 07/10/2007 : 22:52:20
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After reading some of the more recent posts about 'comforting, assuring etc' (which incidentally is consistent with F. Schiffer's argument that the IC represents an immature side of our mind), I'm pretty confused with how to deal with this aspect of my treatment.
The Sarno diciples ive read (Amir, Brady) argue that one should be "tough" with your subconcious, yelling, cursing, even threatening it (and dishing out the appropriate punishment). This does not seem very "supportive" to me. I'm no expert at raising kids (i have none) but it seems to me a child is just going to act up more if you curse at it or imagine beating the heck out of it (the visualization approach of pain talk). Yet, showing the subconcious 'you're in charge' makes sense too. Am i missing the relationship between IC and subconcious?? Very confusing--what do i do???
Aside: hey its been a couple months now, still no end, what happened to the 6 week cure....grrrr. |
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Littlebird
USA
391 Posts |
Posted - 07/11/2007 : 01:36:09
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Hi Stanfr,
Although I first heard of the inner child concept a long time ago, I didn't really get interested in it until I started reading this forum, so using it as a method of accessing the feelings in the subconscious mind is a fairly new experience for me and there are others here who probably know a lot more than I do. From what I've read about inner child work, I get the impression that there are different points of view about just what the inner child is or what it represents.
My perspective is that I still find myself repressing and suppressing emotions because when I was a child I got the message that it was not acceptable for me to express such emotions. So I'm finding that looking at things from the perspective of the child I used to be is giving me the opportunity to acknowledge the feelings I couldn't express before. For me this is what doing inner child work means, looking into my past feelings and allowing them to be felt and acknowledged.
I don't really see my subconscious mind as being just an inner child though. Actually I see it as just the part of my brain that does things automatically, whether by instinct (we pull our hand away from a hot stove without thinking about it first) or because of frequent repetition (I check my mirrors while driving without really thinking about it because I've done it so many times that it became automatic, even though when I first started driving I did have to think about doing it). Learning to repress emotion started really early in my childhood, so for me it's useful to try to go back and remember those feelings and acknowledge them, giving myself the support that was lacking when I was a child so that I can retrain my subconscious to not automatically repress emotions caused by current events. But that's not the only kind of retraining that my subconscious needs. It also needs to be retrained not to automatically substitute a physical sensation for the repressed emotions. I can do that part by firmly telling myself that I'm not going to tolerate that sort of thing any more.
Don't be discouraged that you're not cured yet--it seems to take more time for some of us. That seems to be why Dr. Sarno feels it's necessary to refer some people to therapy, they just aren't going to recover with the basic knowledge and need to spend some time exploring their emotions more. It's been about a year since I first learned of TMS and even though I'm not symptom-free yet I have overcome several symptoms and am able to chase them off when they try to return. Hang in there, it will come together for you in time. |
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weatherman
USA
184 Posts |
Posted - 07/11/2007 : 08:09:20
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I have to go along with the get tough approach. In many ways the TMS source is like an unruly, obnoxious child - like the ones you may see throwing tantrums in the local mall. You don't deal with that behavior by buying the kid a banana split.
Weatherman
"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement." |
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sandhya
16 Posts |
Posted - 07/11/2007 : 08:35:14
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Hi folks!
I so appreciate stanfr's post because this is something I myself have really struggled with.
As someone who tends to be exceedingly hard on myself, I have wondered at times whether the physical symptoms have served to protect me from that extreme harsh self-criticism and resulting emotional pain...must be a form of perfectionism, which I know is one of the causes of tms problems.
Anyway, beating up something inside me would seem to continue and encourage that negative cycle rather than put a firm but healthy stop to it.
I guess I am reacting to the common idea that physical pain is a warning signal that changes need to be made.
I hope this makes sense. Any comments would be very much appreciated. MANY thanks!
- s.
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Edited by - sandhya on 07/11/2007 08:36:34 |
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armchairlinguist
USA
1397 Posts |
Posted - 07/11/2007 : 08:39:41
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Both approaches actually make sense and are not mutually exclusive. I think Corey's explanation about the child versus the automatic part of the mind is helpful, but it's also useful to realize that dealing with a kid has two sides: being firm and creating standards when the kid is being bratty, and being gentle and compassionate when the kid is in need.
I look at the "get tough" approach as being best used in a way that isn't very introspective. I don't find the child in my mind, picture her, invite her in, and then get tough. Instead I talk to my mind and the pain, and just say "None of this, I know this is nonsense, get out of here, quit it."
If I'm going to do true inner child work, I try to see or sense the child, bring her into my mind, be comforting and gentle. I don't work with the physical pain at these time (I didn't start IC work as such until I didn't really have pain anyway) but just directly with the emotions and needs that I sense from the child. Sometimes I imagine hugging her or dancing with her. These moments can be quite brief but always increase my sense of space with myself, that I'm allowing myself to just be, however I am.
Sometimes I also have a spontaneous experience of feelings from when I was a child which isn't consciously introspective in the sense of the above type, and the feelings really feel like they belong to ME, and not to the child that I was or the child inside. For me these are actually the most helpful experiences. Something triggers a memory and I finally understand what I really experienced in the remembered situation, or even the trigger can go right to the feeling. These can be eerie because the emotions are so different from what I normally feel, very intense and often very foreign to me, nothing I have experience with, because I've been blocking them out for my entire life. It is so liberating, albeit so painful, to have this happen, that it is very hard to describe the magnitude of the change when the unacknowledged feeling 'returns home'. I don't think these moments would happen if I hadn't laid the groundwork by journaling quite a bit and being aware of the possibility of the inner child with her quite different set of feelings from my conscious ones, so that's a possible route into this kind of work.
Hope this description helps.
--
Wherever you go, there you are. |
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stanfr
USA
268 Posts |
Posted - 07/11/2007 : 22:03:52
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Thanks for the comments!
Sandyhya: Exactly! Im an extreme perfectionist, and my therapist keeps telling me to stop beating myself up--something ive apparently gotten quite good at.
Littlebird: Good info, thanks! I guess it requires a balanced approach--firm but understanding.
Armchair: yes, that's sort of the way ive been handling it--being mad at the 'gremlin' in an abstract sense but trying to understand the IC. I had a brief moment when i imagined being bullied as a kid (looking out the right side of my vision, since i suspect my left hemisphere is more affected) and all the emotion came in like it was happening in real time--it freaked me out because i was experiencing the emotion as a child would. I wish i could access that part of me for an extended period, might help flush out some of the negativity. |
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miehnesor
USA
430 Posts |
Posted - 07/11/2007 : 22:13:08
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Great posts Arm and LB! When you interact with love and compassion towards your IC then feelings begin to come even when they aren't expected at times. The child will let go of the feelings repressed when it is safe enough and feels trust with yourself the adult. This process can take time. The IC is scared and will venture out with feelings very slowly at first if at all. Progress is slow at first but builds steam over time.
I like to view the unconscious as having two parts. One part is the unconscious part, the ego, that is afraid of the feelings of the IC and reacts to keep the feelings of the IC repressed employing TMS as an aid. The other part is the IC itself containing all of those unacceptable powerful and scarry feelings. I don't have a problem with the "get tough" approach with the ego but definitely think this approach to the IC is counterproductive. What you will get is- no change- wrt accessing feelings. To draw the IC out of hiding the kind of approach that ArmChair describes will over time be very effective as she has demonstrated in her post!
When starting out on this path I would not be too concerned and start worrying if feelings don't come. Just dedicate yourself to the process and stick with it. This stuff works! |
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stanfr
USA
268 Posts |
Posted - 07/11/2007 : 23:18:52
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Miehnesor:
hmm, that makes me wonder: could it be that the TMS/symtom is not created so much to "protect us" from "dangerous" emotions (a la Sarno) but instead, as you suggest, simply because one part of our mind simply does not want to deal with those emotions, and uses the symptom to aid in the repression? Kind of like shutting the crying kid away rather than trying to resolve whatever it is that keeps it crying? just thinking out loud... |
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sandhya
16 Posts |
Posted - 07/11/2007 : 23:26:50
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This is a fascinating discussion. I am learning so much. I like the idea of "firm with understanding," and of getting mad at the gremlin but understanding the IC.
..also the idea that there are various levels to this thing, as miehnesor wrote. Glad to see that this is a more complex subject than may meet the eye. It's always seemed to me that there are several voices or entities or some such thing deep inside and that I identify with different ones at different times....thinking of transactional analysis with the parent, adult, and child ego states that alternate.
stanfr, I so agree with you...(and thanks for the nice words!) For me, the thought of beating up the unconscious just causes a big surge in muscle tension.
Tonight I tried a slightly different approach which actually worked very well. I had a physical symptom pf tms that was really annoying. I tried saying to myself, or whoever the heck it was way down there, Okay, I appreciate what you are trying to do, but it's just not working, so you can STOP IT, NOW.
Then as I drove I just kept saying STOP it, now! as I glanced at the clock to see how long I could hold the symptom off. It just melted away, and when it tried to come back I just plugged away and it is now not there at all. So grateful! I have a long way to go, but what a good feeling.
Thanks to everyone who posts here...this is getting a little less mysterious!
best to all,
san
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armchairlinguist
USA
1397 Posts |
Posted - 07/13/2007 : 16:51:16
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miehnesor, that's a really helpful image, to see it as having an unconscious part of the ego as well as having the repressed emotions of the IC in the unconscious. It makes a lot of sense, because repressing is itself something we do unconsciously, so there must be something unconsciously pushing us to repress. Certainly this something is not the IC itself, which mainly wants to be acknowledged as part of us and as being okay. It would make sense for it to be the ego, the part of us that wants to just survive and make it through, at any cost to our inner selves. (I do think in this sense that repression is protective -- as infants and children, in environments that are not supportive, we simply can't handle some of the stuff we experience, but at least if we repress we can survive and have the chance to recover it and become whole later in life.)
Stanfr, what you described with envisioning the bullying sounds extremely similar to the experiences I've had. This does take time and is worth doing even if nothing happens in the moment. It's like what Pema Chodron says about why we meditate -- not so we can be how we are just when we meditate, but so we get practice in being how we are, however that is, in easy circumstances first before we try it in our actual life. Doing the IC work is like that -- you connect with him/her first symbolically, in a calm circumstance and over time, actually, in realtime, by either recovery of lost emotions or experiencing them in the situation itself (not repressing).
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Wherever you go, there you are. |
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HilaryN
United Kingdom
879 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2007 : 03:28:49
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Interesting to read this. Although I find it effective and use it a lot, I had seen the “get tough” approach as being at odds with the “getting in touch” with emotions and it seemed like another form of repression.
So it’s good to read the different interpretation. Thanks.
Hilary N |
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Littlebird
USA
391 Posts |
Posted - 07/20/2007 : 01:07:45
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I've been reflecting on this comment from miehnesor ever since it was posted: "I like to view the unconscious as having two parts. One part is the unconscious part, the ego, that is afraid of the feelings of the IC and reacts to keep the feelings of the IC repressed employing TMS as an aid. The other part is the IC itself containing all of those unacceptable powerful and scarry feelings."
When I read this comment about the ego being afraid of the feelings of the IC, something just clicked for me. It has helped me in the effort to get from just intellectually acknowledging my suppressed feelings to being able to allow myself to actually feel some of them. Just looking at them from an intellectual perspective isn't enough. It's scary to feel, but good. It has changed my approach to journaling, helping me to try to really feel as I write, rather than writing just from the perspective of a distant observer. As a result, I've experienced improvement in the level of pain and fatigue that I feel and I'm sleeping much better.
I also really appreciate the comment that ACL made: "repressing is itself something we do unconsciously, so there must be something unconsciously pushing us to repress. Certainly this something is not the IC itself, which mainly wants to be acknowledged as part of us and as being okay. It would make sense for it to be the ego, the part of us that wants to just survive and make it through, at any cost to our inner selves." That idea of just needing to survive and make it through, at any cost, is really something I've always told myself. I just didn't know how high the cost would really be. When I read the comment I realized I still sort of have the attitude that my inner child should realize I've just been trying to survive and it should just accept whatever needs to be done to assure survival.
It's so helpful when I come across comments that fit so perfectly for me. It's like suddenly being able to put several pieces of a jigsaw puzzle into place and then being able to see more of the picture. |
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miehnesor
USA
430 Posts |
Posted - 07/20/2007 : 11:33:13
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quote:
Originally posted by Littlebird
When I read this comment about the ego being afraid of the feelings of the IC, something just clicked for me. It has helped me in the effort to get from just intellectually acknowledging my suppressed feelings to being able to allow myself to actually feel some of them. Just looking at them from an intellectual perspective isn't enough. It's scary to feel, but good. It has changed my approach to journaling, helping me to try to really feel as I write, rather than writing just from the perspective of a distant observer. As a result, I've experienced improvement in the level of pain and fatigue that I feel and I'm sleeping much better.
That's great to hear, LittleBird. When I was journaling I would find it helpful to purposefully write to my IC what would bring on feelings. If I couldn't get to the feelings I would just move on to something else that did. (Ultimately this wasn't enough for me and I had to get help with therapy to continue the feeling process.)
Glad you are feeling better. |
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How to approach IC
