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sandhya
16 Posts |
 Posted - 02/27/2008 : 16:45:30
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Hi all
just wanted to say that this is a really fascinating and thought provoking thread. Thanks to all involved.
Hillbilly, I wonder if you have had any dealings with a group known as R.I. I hear echoes of that philosophy all through your posts.
best to all
s.
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Hillbilly
USA
385 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2008 : 18:25:44
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Sandhya,
What is R.I.? Are you referring to some organization? |
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Hillbilly
USA
385 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2008 : 18:36:14
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I do indeed wish not to correspond throug. this forum for many reasons.
What did you do to get past your symptoms with panic disorder? The same thing has happened to you again, just with a different target. Repeat the same steps you went through exactly to get over panic disorder, but this time put the pain in the same place in your thinking as your shaking legs and pounding heart. They can't harm you, you know that. So face it, accept it, focus on everything in your life but the symptoms so you don't feed them fear fuel, and you will heal rather quickly.
Since you have been through this before, it might do you some good to take a short course with a counselor or coach (again, I saw tremendous value in a person who went through it) so you can identify patterns of stress in your thinking and correct them so you learn to treat yourself better. That's what healing is about, really being good to your mind and body. I suspect that you strain yourself to accomplish even mundane tasks and have a perfectionistic tendency?
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miche
Canada
283 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2008 : 18:45:43
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Hillbilly,
Thank you for writing about your experience, I do not see arrogance in your posts , what I see a desire to help the ones who haven't been helped by Sarno alone,I am one of these people, seing you are doing so on a tms board speaks volume about your courage and your beliefs. I always felt that the majority can sort through all the information that is presented and decide what is helpful to them, but maybe not , I am glad that you have found what works for you after all this time, cheers! 
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PeterW
Canada
102 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2008 : 18:56:38
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Hi Hillbilly - I'm another ex board hanger. Peruse by every now and again though and caught this thread. Thanks for having the courage to start this thread. I think you are right on with many of your insights - no doubt for yourself and probably a good portion of other TMSers. The distraction part of the theory always seemed just plain off the mark to me, no matter how right on the personality descriptions and other parts were, and no matter how hard I challenged my belief systems. Finally I ended out just taking from TMS theory what intuitively worked for me, and discarded the rest. I realized it was pointless trying to reconcile certain parts of the theory that just didn't fit with my real life experience, or my intuition. Just led to more inner conflict and confusion. But there were certain personal belief systems I did have to challenge and overcome in order to be helped, and that was a whole other ball of wax.
But we're all different, and mostly I just want to say thanks for speaking and sticking up for your truth (albeit rather forcefully when faced with the inevitable resistance), while acknowledging that it's not necessarily the truth or path that all must follow.
BTW, perhaps you want to avoid this topic but last time you were through here (last summer I believe) I recall you crediting another approach that at the time was really helping your pain and muscular tension. Is your view of that approach as high now as it was then, and can it reconcile with your present views? I'm just curious (not trying to trip you up), and if you'd rather not reply here I understand. Cheers. |
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Hillbilly
USA
385 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2008 : 19:10:25
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PeterW,
Hello, old crony!
You didn't say how you were, but I suspect much better. Somatics, the book by Thomas Hanna, was indeed a movement training I undertook on my own during my recovery. I advocated it highly then and now. Again, I hadn't moved fluidly in a long time, so when I started to do it, I was frightened to death, tense before I even started, and needed something gentle. This fit the bill perfectly in re-educating movement and proving to myself that I could move and stretch and live again.
Cheers!
And thanks, Miche. How are you doing? |
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PeterW
Canada
102 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2008 : 22:57:58
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Hi again Hillbilly,
Yes I am doing a lot better thanks, still have some ways to go but am so much more mobile than a year or two ago and progress is ongoing.
I actually have the Hanna Somatics book, to be honest his explanation of the unconscious mindbody processes that trigger common back pain made far more intuitive sense in my case than did Sarno's distraction theory. But I suspect it's not the exact same process that applies to everyone, and for his part Sarno delves far deeper into personality and specific triggers. But like you I was painfully aware of my personality traits amd all the stressors and conflicts in my life past and present, and got nowhere rehashing them over and over. My own plan became an amalgam of Hanna, Brady/Sarno/TMS, and a research based book Explain Pain written by a couple Aussie pain researchers. There are certain overlapping areas of truth that resonate from all these books and approaches. Plus a modicum of Eckhart Tolle, who is my favourite tonic for an overactive mind.
Moving and living again sure feels good, doesn't it!
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Hillbilly
USA
385 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2008 : 07:19:57
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PeterW,
By the time I started doing Somatics, I had succeeded in conquering many of my fears related to body noise through counseling. I underwent the training in a very discliplined fashion for a few weeks to get rid of the sitff, tight feeling I had in my shoulders and neck. I no longer had the horrible attacks of pain that would come on when I was in a stressful situation.
Perhaps I should flesh that out more for you. My experience wasn't that a river of blood started cascading down my back. Far from it. When I started getting comfortable with LIFE in general, and most certainly my role in it, I still was stiff and experienced slight pain all the time. It wasn't the old autonomic reactions that would throw me into a panic or tighten up so badly that I felt like crying or running home to lie down.
I just wasn't able to move like I wanted to. Hanna's book helped me retrain my MIND, not my muscles, that it was OK to do this and that. After staying tense like I did for so long, the pain was worst in the back and neck, but I had stiffness all over my body from scalp to toenail. I just didn't register it because the noise was so loud in the neck and upper back. I don't have empirical evidence that Hanna's conclusions are true.
Lastly, I really needed to have the patterns of resistance pointed out to me. They were obvious to almost everyone who knew me. Things like utter avoidance of weddings and other gatherings where small talk might prevail. Avoidance of shopping with the family, strolling through a store and just relaxing. My wife said my eyes darted around like a soldier in a foxhole. This is the expression of anxiety, anticipated dangers and catastrophes created because I chose to go there in my mind instead of being where I was and allowing my boredom to be there, embarrassment to happen.
I really think, in retrospect, that most mental ailments are because of resistance to ourselves and our environment. M. Scott Peck certainly thought so. The opening of his book The Road Less Travelled says once we realize that life is suffering and accept that as fact, we no longer suffer. We see things as average, everyday occurrences. Death, embarrassment, failure, financial struggles, ill health, all common themes. We can't avoid them totally, so why not embrace them as part of our experience? Because they hurt, and we are sensitive to our own hurts and discomforts. We have been for most if not all of our lives, if we are honest.
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Edited by - Hillbilly on 02/28/2008 07:22:35 |
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PeterW
Canada
102 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2008 : 11:38:17
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Thanks for fleshing that out Hillbilly. I can certainly relate to a lot of what you wrote.
Personally I've found Eckhart Tolle to be tremendously helpful in recognizing and letting go of the mind clutter, attatchments, resistance, repetitive thoughts etc, that seem to roll endlessly around in our heads (or at least in my head). That and some counseling too - specifically Transactional Analysis which has been helpful in recognizing resistance, script patterns, ego states, toxic patterns of interacting with others, and driver behavior (be perfect, please others, try hard, be strong, hurry up . . . sound familiar folks??). All the lifetime habits that laid the table for my future problems. A lot of this stuff is so deeply embedded that we really dont consciously realize what we're doing until it is forcefully laid out in front of us.
I do still have some latent stiffness and low grade achiness that lingers, far lower than the crippling pain I did have, and not life altering anymore, but still there. Movement in any form I think can be essential at this stage. I have done the somatic sequences at times and they were definately helpful, but not curative, at least for me. It is all easing more and more as time goes on. I'm a long term project, but definately a worthwhile one IMHO! :)
Cant say I have any empirical evidence either that Hanna is any 'righter' about anything than is Sarno. That part just felt more right to me, so with that I just allowed myself to drop the internal circular arguments about the 'distraction' issue that were paralysing me at the time.
One thing I picked up from the Explain Pain that might be worth mentioning is that it is actually documented with brain scans etc that with chronic pain our neural networks and wiring actually change in the brain. Specifically, we all have a Star Trek like hologram of our body in our brains, and this gets out of whack. They call it 'smudging', and its like the brain hologram image of your right shoulder (say if you have long term chronic right shoulder pain) starts to blur with the image of your neck and other shoulder and other body parts. And pain signals can backfire and end out in different places. So the pain can spread, and you can actually lose some of the acuity of finer muscle control in affected areas. A big part of their protocol is to train the brain's hologram back to normal, by gradually introducing movement and telling the brain that its ok to move that way. This totally sincs up with Hanna's 'Sensory Motor Amnesia' theory, even though Hanna did his work years before any of this imaging became available. With us, it's not that anything is structurally wrong, its just that the wiring and circuitry is messed up. This brain hologram also explains why amputees can suffer from what is known as phantom limb pain. And the good news is that this 'hologram' can be reprogrammed, as Sarno devotees have known for decades.
Plus, all the pain processing areas in the primitive parts of our brain (amygdala etc) are also the areas where fear, anger and strong emotions are processed (consistent with Sarno theory). So we have to consciously retrain that aspect of our experience too.
But another unavoidable truth is that we'll likely keep having new fires to put out, unless these unhealthy emotional patterns that we've carried with us for a lifetime are dealt with and changed. Sounds like you're well ahead with that now.
Anyway, all the best! Nice hearing from you.
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Odrog
27 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2008 : 12:02:43
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Hillbilly, thanks for your insights. I think you are on the right track, but of course we probably both generalize and categorize too much! :)
One of Sarno's weaknesses in my opinion is all the Freud worship and psychoanalysis junk. That said, he has also contributed a lot and I'm grateful for the work he's done. My own back pain went away after reading healing back pain. But you are definitely right, there is something missing when it comes to Sarno. It's like he is really close to "getting it" but isn't quite there yet. The very fact that a lot of people read his books and say "uhh, what was the cure again???" is testimony to the fact that he isn't "there" yet. Its almost comical to see the Sarno defenders respond with "open your mind" or "its there, your mind is just tricking you into believing it isn't!" haha. If you go with traditional CBT and proven specific plans for overcoming anxiety, you are probably going to get the best results. Sarno's biggest contribution in my own journey is simply that he linked the myriad of symptoms to my anxiety issue, connecting a few dots for me personally.
"TMS" is such a bad name, and only reinforces that fact that Sarno didn't have a broad understanding when he coined the term. Later when he learned more, it was already too late to change the name to something that actually fits (he talks about this in the very beginning of the Divided Mind and admits that the name TMS is inaccurate but his "colleagues" told him it was too late to change it now, haha. So now he's apparently trying to substitute "tension myoneural syndrome" as a way of preserving the TMS abbreviation with a new definition?).
Sarno also seems fixated on what the physiological process is that the brain uses to create pain (many on this board, and even in this thread are the same way) - personally I don't care that much, I mean its an interesting tangent, certainly worthy of scientific study, but to the sufferers - it shouldn't really matter. There may not be any definitive explanations, just a lot of theories, fixating on this sort of thing can be distracting, and can even increase anxiety in some people.
Someone in this thread said, anxiety can come from: "(1) Childhood stress; (2) Stress occurring now; (3) Stress from a traumatic event; (4) Depression; and (5) Anxiety disorders."
But really, I think everyone with mindbody problems (everyone on this forum) has an anxiety disorder of some kind, in fact I think the term "TMS" should just be replaced with "anxiety disorder". Most of us have the "perfectionist" tendency and often the "goodist" traits (both of which Sarno talks about). Many of us feel and absorb the anxiety of others around us (even through a television!) which only increases our tension and internal anxiety. We are also terrible when it comes to "negative self talk". I find myself thinking negatively a lot. I also replay even insignificant things from my day, over and over again in my head, often to criticize myself. I'll replay even very old events, things from my past, sometimes I'll even dream about these things. I find myself even reading and rereading emails and messages I've sent people, often when someone replies to me and quotes me, I'll jump down to the quote and reread what I wrote before I even read their reply. All of this contributes to the anxiety disorder, and can be addressed with proven behavior modification techniques.
I think you are right about finding a good CBT program for anxiety, most people with mindbody disorders should go that route, especially if symptoms keep returning (brand new ones for many). Thought life and resultant emotions are critical in mindbody (anxiety) disorders. I like your description of the "worry-prone person"--"you can constantly fixate on these dangers until you scramble your nervous system". Its all about "the thinking habit".
I posted this before - but I think the "Attacking Anxiety" program by Lucinda Bassett is great, it has helped thousands of people. If you are lucky you can find it for free at your local library (the audio can be found on the internet, but obviously a copyright violation). You can probably pick it up at a big discount on eBay as well, which is what I did. It was that program that immediately ended my panic attacks many years ago and helped me tremendously. But I know what you are thinking, why wasn't I completely cured forever then? Well for one thing, I didn't keep up with eliminating negative self talk, which I know I need to do. I don't believe there is an ON/OFF boom you're done kind of cure. I kind of just went back to normal after my symptoms disappeared (and in some ways, this is what most people SHOULD DO) however I didn't really notice right away when symptoms came back years later.
I had lower back pain for years, and also carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) type symptoms (I work on a computer all day) -- I had NO IDEA these were related to my anxiety disorder (and for that, I thank Sarno! like I said, this was the connecting of the dots I needed at the time).
So the CTS went away before I even read Sarno, the back pain is gone after reading Sarno. Just weeks after that, I had a terrible dizzy spell. Well I think that is done/gone too because I understand what it was now, not much different from panic attacks. I don't currently have any mindbody symptoms. But I don't feel "cured" so to speak, because I know I will need to continue work on eliminating negative self talk, perfectionism, and overreacting in stressful situations (dealing with autonomic overload, and the common feedback loop of increasing stress/adrenaline, etc.)
You mention "discipline of thought and action" - I agree with you 100% - but isn't this a lifelong pursuit instead of some instant cure? It basically has to become a way of life. If you lose this "discipline of thought and action" next year, won't your symptoms likely return? That's what I mean by no cure. If you aren't careful, the anxiety symptoms will return. The best defense is knowing what you are dealing with, recognizing it for what it is. I think it helps a lot to share this with someone in your life (a spouse for many of us) - that way they can help to remind you of anxiety symptoms when they become evident, and nudge you a little when they think you are hopelessly falling into the negative and critical thought patterns. A lot of it is internal, and not apparent to others though, so its largely a battle you must wage on your own.
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stanfr
USA
268 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2008 : 13:57:11
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Odrog: I agree Sarno over-relies on Freud (although to call all psychoanalysis 'junk' is a bit of a stretch, IMO). I also agree that anxiety plays a huge role in the syndrome. Ive come to two conclusions with respect to Mindbody disorders:
1)Recognition that the symptoms are psychosomatic and not physical is a key.
2)Subconscious processes play a role in the disorder.
Depsite being a critic of Sarno (who i completely credit with saving me from surgery and being a genius to bring the issue of minbody into the mainstreaam discussion), i responded to Hillbilly's post because there is an inference (aside; absolutely amazing to me how no one has defended Sarno!) that #2 is not valid, based largely on individual experience. I would simply suggest the process is more complex than anyone is willing to admit. Ignoring the subconcious aspect may do more harm than good for some, so i say don't generalize! I do think the physiologic process is important, because until it becomes better understood, the mindbody approach will remain on the same plane with countless other 'alternative' approaches from magnetic bracelets to urine therapy. |
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Hillbilly
USA
385 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2008 : 14:47:01
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Stanfr,
I am very glad you wrote the above, because I think I omitted from my earlier posts what I think about all the subconscious process. It is indeed a subconscious process that creates the symptoms. Dr. Brady describes this exactly. It has been around for a very long time. It revolves around the part of the brain called the amygdala. This little booger is the thing that gets programmed to shoot the adrenals and pituitary into high alert. Dr. Schubiner has a video out on youtube explaining it in detail. But he then shoots off into Sarno land talking about unconscious conflict.
http://www.designandcopy.ca/lifeline/backissues/5-2.html
Cortical control, as described in the article is the central theme of CBT. You have to behave in ways that confront fear to defuse it. This is nothing new. Psychoanalysis often flounders for months or even years in childhood alone. I think we all know when we are in conflict with ourselves. William Faulkner won a Nobel prize for literature writing about the "human heart in conflict with itself."
It just comes down to whether you really believe that your brain is trying to distract you from feeling an emotion. Again, here is the question that must be answered: Why would my own brain, the CPU of my existence, protect me from an emotion that it perceives (outside my conscious awareness) is so dangerous that it would give me bodily symptoms that completely debilitate me and keep me from functioning at all orsuffering so severely that I could take my own life? Here is where I had to throw it all away. I had to take the larger, more acceptable part and leave the rest because it was like going along on a nice serene canoe ride and then going over a waterfall.
The explanation Sarno gives is probably what keeps him a pariah in the medical world. He didn't bother looking for alternative explanations (or gives no attribution to them anywhere) other than the defense explanation offered by Dr. Stanley Coen, a Freudian.
And to say that Dr. Sarno brought mindbody medicine into the limelight is simply to ignore the entire field of psychology. He has certainly sounded the horn for his fellow physicians to recognize it, however. |
Edited by - Hillbilly on 02/28/2008 15:38:29 |
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curingCFS
36 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2008 : 17:05:16
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Hi Hillbilly,
Do you have a title or author that you recommend as a best bet for overcoming anxiety?
I think a terrific book is Get Out Of Your Mind and Into Your Life--the new acceptance and commitment therapy. It speaks to living in spite of the symptoms. But also jumping into the symptom, instead of trying to cognitively control it. The attempt to solve emotional problems with the same skill set used to solve regular life problems doesn't work. That is why the over analysis and ruminating just buries a person and round and round they go. ACT acceptance and commitment therapy is the new kid on the block. I wonder if you have read it?
Thanks |
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austini
29 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2008 : 17:55:24
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Hi,
It will be interesting to see what books Hillbilly recommends in relation to anxiety. I have seen "Taming your Gremlin" mentioned a number of times here and elsewhere so I have ordered it out of curiousity. However I still find Claire Weekes books invaluable.
Cheers - gordon |
Edited by - austini on 02/28/2008 18:17:14 |
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mk6283
USA
272 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2008 : 17:59:07
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I have to admit that I have not had the time to read through this entire thread so if I make comments that were already made or addressed, then please forgive me.
I was going to leave this topic alone because I didn't think that it really made a difference whether TMS was a "distraction" or a physiologic process. This is all a matter of speculation anyway. I think that the crucial point is acknowledging that the origin of many symptoms can lie in the "mind" despite what structural findings or explanations might suggest PLUS these symptoms or syndromes can OFTEN be CURED (a rare word in medicine today) when one believes and understands what is truly going on. This is what I believe is Sarno's greatest contribution to medicine.
When I began to think about it a little more, I thought that there was definitely something wrong in trying to convince people that TMS was simply a reflection of "science" or an autonomic nervous system dysfunction, as you suggest. Believe me, I was trained as an engineer and entered medical school wanting to be an orthopedic surgeon because I thought the body was just another machine. However, I now believe wholeheartedly that this couldn't be further from the truth. Clearly the ANS is involved in the manifestations of TMS, but it is also just as clear that the "mind" is involved in the process. Sure "anxiety" or "stress" may be the triggers, but your mind is clearly trying to grab your attention or, at the least, trying to signal that something is just not right. Why else would symptoms morph and transition as they so often do? Why else would writing about difficult and painful emotions evoke a cure in so many patients? Why else would a symptom disappear upon realizing that it was a benign stress response and not the harbinger of some more malignant process?
I guess the main point I am trying to make is that something PSYCHOLOGICAL is clearly going on and is intricately involved in the process and this needs to be understood. Writing things off as just anxiety, stress, chemical imbalance, dysautonomia, or what have you is simply not enough and leaves us wasting any progress that we have made in changing our outlook toward illness. I would definitely agree that the verdict is still out on many of Sarno's conclusions, but I think the essence of his work remains one of the greatest contributions to medicine to date and not acknowledging it as such is wrong.
Best,
MK |
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Odrog
27 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2008 : 19:23:54
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With all due respect MK, anxiety IS "something psychological". Your statement makes no sense to me, and I don't see where you really disagree with what has been said...
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Edited by - Odrog on 02/28/2008 19:25:33 |
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mk6283
USA
272 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2008 : 19:40:28
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If I understand correctly, Hillbilly is trying to disprove Dr. Sarno's theory as to the underlying process of TMS. He thinks that stress/anxiety alone lead to physical symptoms and if they are addressed properly, then the pain will follow. That may very well be true in certain situations. However, I guess I should be a little more clear about what I mean by "psychological." Hillbilly seems to disregard the Freudian elements of TMS, and I think that is wrong. There are clearly unconscious processes and phenomena involved. TMS is not simply a problem of having too much "tension," "nerves," or "anxiety." If that were the case, how does one explain the patient w/ longstanding "tendonitis of the knee," who is not overly stressed or anxious, but cannot seem to get rid of the pain (experimenting w/ numerous therapeutic modalities), until he learns about TMS and is suddenly able to cure himself of it? Or what about the tens of thousands of patients that Dr. Sarno has permanantly cured of their back pain, many of which required his services to understand that hidden emotions may actually be playing a part? Or what about the patient that has allergies that disappear (as they did in my case) by simply understanding why they are there? This is not the same as getting anxious and having your heart race. TMS may or may not function as a means of physical distraction from psychological conflict, but regardless it is still a means for our unconscious feelings to express themselves. I hope I'm being clear.
Best,
MK |
Edited by - mk6283 on 02/28/2008 22:02:03 |
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mcone
114 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2008 : 21:16:27
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quote:
Originally posted by Hillbilly
I had to read and read and analyze and reread and analyze and finally make the connection, accept what my six doctors were telling me was right. There was nothing clinically wrong.
* * *
When my coach finally was able to point out these flawed thinking patterns and help me understand the stress my thoughts had kept me under for most of my life, I saw quick changes in my body.
* * *
I think this was a function of my desire to get better, and my confidence in the person who was leading me to recovery. I lost my confidence in Sarno when I tried his exact program to the letter, yet continued to suffer. This is my whole purpose in starting this thread.
I don't claim to have invented the cure for TMS. But I do know that struggling to understand this theory, for analytical people especially, can lead to more frustration, more stress, and more symptom entrenchment.
This is one of the more intelligent topics I've seen in a long time. Hillbilly's articulate posts demonstrate *a* (but not necessarily *the only*) thoroughly coherent, well-documented and properly integrated understanding of the process.
I've also faced enormous frustration trying to assimilate the notion that the human organism evolved to posseses a protective mechanism that selectively targets soft tissue areas and reduces blood flow, to create a distraction from unpleasant repressed emotions. Which isn't to deny the fact that these elements (local hyper-sensitizations, restrictions in blood flow, and psychological issues that aren't being addressed) are observed occuring together. It's just that I don't believe the relationships are well-understood. This frustration definitely undermined my belief in the process.
And I have to surmise that for many of us BELIEF (and the resulting freedom from FEAR and inhibition) and getting it processed deeply into your subconscious or automatic nervous system responses is the key to reversing this process. Hillbilly's experience supports the idea that achieving a confidence-inspiring understanding of how the symptoms are the product of anxiety/fear is the necessary antidote to the contemplation of physical damage or unidentified disease process.
[Of course, for every rule, an excpetion - as there are folks for whom belief followed only after commitment to the process].
Nate McNamara, who recoverd from a serious "RSI" also seemed to placed the emphasis on overcoming the fear conditioning (while neither dismissing nor embracing the idea of a psychological cause):
quote:
Nate McNamara http://conquerrsi.com/handout.html
The most difficult key to accept is the second one: your autonomic nervous system is inappropriately turning off the blood flow to your arms. It is part of your body's freeze response, one of the primitive fear responses. Why is your mind doing this? Is some part of your mind afraid? If so, what is it afraid of?
I am aware of two theories. The first, proposed by Dr. John Sarno, states that chronic pain is a defense mechanism against unpleasant thoughts and/or emotions. The second, described by Ashok Gupta, suggests that chronic pain is learned at a more primitive level, like Pavlovian conditioning. Considering that the brain is so complex and interconnected, there may be many ways for it to learn the unhealthy pattern we call RSI, and multiple mechanisms may be at work simultaneously.
The good news is that we don't care. Your conscious mind is able to override the inappropriate response regardless of how that response was generated - and once adequate blood flow is restored to the arms, recovery is quick, complete, and irrevocable.
quote:
Originally posted by stanfr
The explanation Sarno gives is probably what keeps him a pariah in the medical world. He didn't bother looking for alternative explanations (or gives no attribution to them anywhere) other than the defense explanation offered by Dr. Stanley Coen, a Freudian.
[cynical rant]
I've also stated elswhere that TMS theory cannot advance as a credible medical discipline unless and until it becomes open to acknowledging all the available science of relevant disciplines (psychology, neurology, physiology, etc.) and making efforts to harmonize and reconcile it's theories with other models of chronic pain. I suspect however, that, at least one reason this isn't done is that the complexities of the mindbody interaction are so daunting that (even if a comprehensive understanding were developed) it would be clinically prohibitive: A fairly successful method with easy-to-understand concepts which hits the highlights for most people, most of the time, can do much more good than a meta-model that deals with complicated relationships between thought patterns, and a large constellation of effects in the brain, nervous system, and the bodily organs. In all fairness to Sarno, he does concede (here and there) that the process isn't well-understood[/cynical rant]
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Edited by - mcone on 02/28/2008 21:32:52 |
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miche
Canada
283 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2008 : 21:44:07
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| Hillbilly, I am a work in progress,thank you for asking, like you and Peter I am applying what seems to work for me,a lot of it is in sync with your methods. Sarno has helped me recognise emotions from my past that I needed to look at, however it became obvious to me that current stresses and my reactions to them were and always have been my downfall. I think of fibro as total body bracing, a difficult habit to break , my body is so used to tensing up, but knowledge is the key. |
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Hillbilly
USA
385 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2008 : 23:19:25
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OK, folks,
I am outta here. MK sealed it for me by restating exactly what I said and then saying it was wrong. The amygdala (please see the post above) is part of the brain that is outside the conscious part, call it subconscious or unconscious. The entire process of symptom creation happens on the subconscious level in response to conditioned happenings in the HPA axis. Has anyone read Dr. Brady's book or watched Dr. Schubiner's video before attempting to refute everything I put out here? Please do it. After all, they are "TMS docs,"
Your example of knee pain is easily brought in with all other bodily discomforts for which no tests find a major problem. The fact is that we focus on it, fear it, analyze it, get angry about it. amplify its effect, and it stays like a stray dog that you keep feeding. That is the case with back pain, headaches, and every other common symptom that fall under the rubric "anxiety disorder." What has to happen is a conscious change must be enacted by the person's will to no longer view the ailment as a danger or impediment, and the nervous system can then relax. I have seen this in countless people with whom I have worked since recovering.
I, like Odrog, cannot make sense at all of the psychological statement. The follow-up about a person with no overt stress/anxiety with pain is completely outside of Dr. Sarno's theory as well as mine. But I suspect there are people who are so completely out of touch with their own thought life and emotions that it is possible. If you have a name, perhaps that person should post his success story.
I appreciate Dave's letting me play here the past three days without threatening to shut me down as he did before. I was angry then, but I got past it. I came with a message of hope for many of you to regain your normal physical health and even find peace with yourself for the first time in your lives. That, in my case, is no exaggeration.
Mcone, boy! Are you sure you and I aren't from the same parents? I read your post and went and read some of your old stuff. Sarno has you balled up just like he did me. You are twisting yourself into a ball of tension. You and only you can determine if you are suffering from emotional tension, but just your tone in your posts suggest mountains of anxiety -- pressure to recover, angst over career issues. I was in the same spot, only with little kids (you don't mention any, so pardon me if you do have them). What finally got me to surrender the fight was reading about surrender from Dr. Weekes. Fighting adds tension, whether it is fighting your situation, your feelings, or symptoms. I needed help from someone who had lived it.
I hope you are in counseling, and if not, I hope you find someone who will scream at you when you start to analyze or fight back. My coach had to tell me 10 times an hour to stop thinking about what she said or how she said it and follow directions. If you suspect from the timing of onset of your symptoms that you were just overwhelmed and out of control, you probably can safely treat it this way.
A small aside: the quote you attributed to stanfr was mine.
Ashok Gupta is a name I only know from a site about CFS. But his theory supports the scientific research of a haywire nervous system that needs to be reprogrammed. The part of the brain his research targets is called the amygdala. I have mentioned this several times in the thread. Is anyone NOT seeing all these connections?
All my best to everyone here. Now back to my life again!
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Edited by - Hillbilly on 02/28/2008 23:37:14 |
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Science or Sarno?
