In The Mindbody Prescription, Dr. Sarno states, "Contemporary medical research on the relationship of emotions to pain focuses exclusively on perceived emotions. The person who suffers these feelings is aware of them. In my experience these may aggravate but do not cause pain. TMS teaches us that only feelings that the mind perceives as dangerous, and therefore represses, induce physical reactions."
This seems to imply that only by working with the unconscious repressed feelings of rage and its equivalents can we begin to make any progress in getting to the source of the problem that is causing our pain. Yet by the very nature of the word "unconscious," are these feelings not hidden from us?
In Dr. Sarno's instructions, "The Treatment of TMS," starting on page 70 of his book "Healing Back Pain," he says, "What one must then do is develop the habit of 'thinking psychological, instead of physical.' I suggest to patients that when they find themselves being aware of the pain, they must consciously and forcefully shift their attention to something psychological."
This suggests a conscious solution will work as well. From these two seemingly disparate points of view, I have come up with a working theory on how we may get to the unconscious cause of our pain, while only having the conscious mind to work with. I call it "Using the Unconscious Adjacent." For this I combine a little bit of the Course in Miracles and Occam's Razor.
In A Course in Miracles, Lesson 21, it says, "The anger may take the form of any reaction ranging from mild irritation to rage. The degree of the emotion you experience does not matter. You will become increasingly aware that a slight twinge of annoyance is nothing but a veil drawn over intense fury."
Occam's Razors states, "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best." This would imply that a deep search of the unconscious mind is not necessary when we may have all we need right here in front of us within easy reach.
Given that rage is what we are trying to get at and make conscious, I think uncovering small, easily accessible conscious examples from our lives, ranging from mild irritation to rage, given time and practice, will eventually shake loose the unconscious ones and make them visible to us.
I have been using this method in treating my own TMS, which manifests each morning as abdominal pains. With an inexpensive microcassette recorder by bed, upon awakening I simply run down all the negative reactions I had during the previous day, no matter how small. I can, of course, go further and deeper in my memory to childhood events if I wish, and did this when I first started out using this approach. Later I realized it wasn't necessary to do this in order to get positive results.
This early in the morning, your mind will usually be focused on something unconscious anyway because at that particular time you are closest to the dream state, which as we all know from Freud is the gateway to the unconscious. I then try to drift off to sleep again for a little while, since a little extra sleep seems to help in the healing process.
Upon arising from bed, I transcribe these tapes into a notebook so that the tape is free for my next day's use. I then can review my notebook over time and see what unconscious gems I am uncovering, and to track my progress. So far I have had success with this approach in keeping my pain symptoms to a minimum throughout the day, even though most mornings I wake up with pain. Going through this process every day keeps me "chipping away" at the unconscious, and I am experiencing more and more reduced-pain or pain-free days.
I believe I came across a quote in one of Dr. Sarno's books saying something to the effect that pain is a gift because it alerts you to the problem, which you can then address by becoming aware of the unconscious rage that is causing it. Maybe someone on this forum can provide this quote reference for me.
Jim Carruth
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Using the Unconscious Adjacent
Posted - 10/15/2008 : 12:51:11
