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All1Spirit
USA
149 Posts |
 Posted - 03/08/2013 : 09:55:21
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I have been a student of neurophysiology for many years. TMS has provided me with many new questions as has the whole field of neuroplasticity or the ability to alter the structure and process of the brain with out invasive measures.
I know and have spoken to Dr. Joseph LeDoux who is one of the worlds premier brain researchers and cited in this article.I would like to open for discussion the possibility that Sarno had it partly right and missed a major part. There is no doubt that his conclusion that pain can be generated by the mind is profound. His work also occurred before many advances we have now in neuroscience.
My question, and it is a question, is whether the pain is a blocking mechanism for unwanted emotions and the process of going back to explore these emotions is beneficial.
In this article Dr. LeDoux describes the process of precognitive emotions that are not and never will be available for inspection by the mind. Many of these were formed in the first years of life or are genetically programmed and contain the raw data to keep us alive and safe. Our rational brain does not have an opportunity to sort these out before we feel them....snake...JUMP!!
How we respond to them either makes them more powerful or lessens them which is called extinction. If you see a snake and jump then start a story: oh God I hate snakes, I might die, I hope there aren't any more, I remember reading that red snakes kill people....OH GOD!!!
You have just etched the “Snake Fear” neural track in your brain deeper which means next time it will be more hair triggered and go off with more intensity.
When we do psycho-archeology and go back and dig through all the old memories of trauma, pain and suffering we are causing new electrical energy in the brain to etch these neural tracks deeper and if we tell ourselves a story about our history that is fear or trauma based we have just created more internal suffering potential.
I am not advocating that we gloss over our past traumas and put lipstick on that pig. For me I need to know where I came from and how it may have altered me in ways that I am not self-supportive or productive. Literally whos voice am I haring when I think and have emotions.
So here is where I question the full Sarno program. Anyone who has been wounded as a child was not provided the emotional growth stages of self-soothing, self-support, positive outcomes, trust and safety. Revisiting these places and writing long pages of painful memories will never teach us to provide our own internal safety which leads to letting go into lowered tension and anxiety. In fact each time we revisit an emotion it recharges the neural pathways.
The way to cause these painful emotions to have less power is to through our thoughts, beliefs and words. Example: if you look back over you life and see how much trauma you have endured and come to believe you are a severely wounded person you are going to suffer.
However if you re-write your story and tell yourself that you are a tough, rugged survivor and if you came through all that crap the rest is small stuff, anxiety will drop. If you are dumped by a date you can create a woe-is-me story or reframe it into: Good – that means a better person needed me to be free to find them.
So from my perspective the only reason to revisit the old painful places is to learn to reframe them into a positive outlook – not to make them positive. Example: I ran away at the age of 15 – I was alone, hungry and scared –so do I conclude that I am still a scared, wounded boy....hell NO!
I am a survivor that learned to scrap and take care of my self in horrible circumstances...a choice to see myself as sad or victorious.
The next step is to reprogram the negative bias that is a survival mechanism – boy this is a major challenge for me.
So from having read 7 TMS books and looking a this through my personal filters I am coming to believe that Sarno gave us a gift of recognizing that body pain in the absence of physical damage but the greatest step in TMS recovery may be accepting our power to create a new reality and to know that what we think and believe becomes who we are!! Remember that every behavior stems from a thought and a belief: if we push ourselves too hard it is because we have a story, conclusion and thought that needs to be changed.
And to come to understand that wounded children turn off emotional awareness and therefore lose the guiding power of emotions and that we need to learn how to listen to this deep inner wisdom again.
Working with old emotions, especially these pre-cognitive ones is like catching fog or heading cats – being mindful of our internal milieu of thoughts, beliefs and stories is tangible and the real work in my belief!!
cognitive neurobiology
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/15/science/brain-s-design-emerges-as-a-key-to-emotions.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
"Around and Around the Circle We Go....
The Answer Sits In The Middle and Knows..." |
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Birdie78
Germany
145 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2013 : 10:25:41
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Great and really interesting article!
In my opinion and as I understood this stuff from different lectures, there're bottom-up-informations (brain stem -> limbic system --> neocortex) and a top-down-pathway vice versa.
The neocortex isn't developped in babys and toddlers so that all the experiences were stored in the implicit memory and cannot be remembered. A baby cannot think, it can only feel in a very bodily way. In the case of early trauma and insecure attatchment styles the child made the experience that the world is not a very secure place, that it is unloved and so on. Later, when the neocortex develeops, on this "basic shame of existing and feeling unloved and bad" thoughts can build up around this feeling ("I am bad, I am unworthy...). In MY opinion these kind of thoughts based on a fundamental shame cannot be adressed only by a top-down approach aka "chanching thoughts". It better has to be adressed by special forms of body therapy (what does not mean digging in implicit and traumatic memories!). Later then, when the cortex is fully developped, negative thinking will for sure cause negative feelings and this can be adressed by changing the thinking-patterns.
And for sure there can be a viscious cycle and it can be different to make a difference between the thoughts. So in the case of very early (attatchment)-trauma it will (in my opinion) be best to attend to both ways of nerv-pathways, bottom-up AND top-down.
I recommend the book "healing developmental trauma" and also a book who was recommended by Dr. James Alexander ("unlocking the emotional brain") if one is interested in approaches adressing the implicit memory. I found the second book to be very helpful, unfortunately my psychotherapist didn't like the book, it "is not relevant for his work", he told me 
Kind regards from Germany sends Birdie |
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Dave
USA
1864 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2013 : 10:37:24
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quote:
Originally posted by All1Spirit
My question, and it is a question, is whether the pain is a blocking mechanism for unwanted emotions and the process of going back to explore these emotions is beneficial.
I am a believer that we cannot answer this question, nor is it important that we do.
Dr. Sarno provides a framework for recovery using a metaphor that the symptoms are manufactured as a distraction mechanism to protect us from feeling "dangerous" emotions.
I personally believe the exact mechanics of TMS are beyond our comprehension. Luckily, we do not have to know the details. We simply need to accept that the symptoms are manufactured by the mind and are completely benign. They serve as a signal to address our emotional health. Something might be going on that is affecting us on a deeper level than we realize. We may be repressing or avoiding something. We may not be fully honest with ourselves about our feelings. By trying to find what it might be we reprogram our reaction to the symptoms. We think psychologically rather than physically. We no longer fear the symptoms, we embrace them. We accept their purpose and we try to deal with whatever might be causing them. Over time this reconditioning process will naturally reduce the symptoms, but more importantly, it eliminates their power. They become nothing more than a nuisance. We don't focus on them, we don't fear them, we don't try to treat or cure them. We accept them for what they are and live our lives despite them.
As for psychotherapy, I do not believe the intention is to relive old pain and suffering. The intention is to become aware of buried feelings that we may be unaware of, or not fully appreciating. These buried feelings may contribute to the inner "rage" that causes TMS symptoms. Psychotherapy also sends a strong message to our brain that we are going to attempt to experience "dangerous" emotions despite its attempts to prevent them from being felt.
Most importantly, psychotherapy works. Those who seek to dismiss or rewrite Dr. Sarno's work ignore his tremendous track record of success. His theories and treatment methods were forged over decades of clinical experience. If psychotherapy did not help patients, he would not prescribe it (just as he stopped prescribing physical therapy when he found it to be counterproductive).
Perhaps the whole "distraction" concept is wrong. Maybe somebody will eventually figure out the real mechanism of TMS, and will come up with an alternate theory, and prove it somehow. Personally, I don't think it will happen in our lifetimes.
Regardless of whether or not it is accurate, it works. Patients who treat TMS symptoms as a distraction from painful repressed emotions get better. Who am I to challenge a medical doctor with decades of clinical experience and thousands of patients helped.
Nevertheless, my main point is it doesn't matter. Recovery from TMS is primarily a reconditioning process. The process requires a recalibration of our thoughts and behaviors in reaction to the symptoms. If one chooses to dismiss the distraction theory, and look at TMS in a different way, there is no harm, provided they still successfully recondition themselves to disarm the symptoms. |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2013 : 10:38:06
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Dr. Rik/A1S.
You seem to be thinking out loud here and answering most of your own questions. As long as you question Dr. Sarno's "full program" you will not fully benefit from it. It requires a "leap of faith" and full belief. You are still stuck in the Descartian scientific/medicine model looking for hard science answers. TMS is more like art then science. If the eminent scientists who you know personally, know so much how come they can't help you get over your current identity crisis?
TMS is simple, Psych 101, which I got an *A* in from Dr. Barnes, at good ol' SF State, in my freshman year, 1966, (the fall of the summer of love)--so I am a world wide authority on the subject. Now that I think about him, Dr. Barnes reminds be of beloved Dr. Donald Dubin, now deceased, who may not have been a doctor, but I am conferring that title on him posthumously.
The pain, whether structural or affective, is a defense mechanism, a distraction from feeling painful emotions. That's all the Good Doctor Sarno says you need to know and BELIEVE--the pain symp is benign, harmless. Early on, I told you, from the little I know of you, that your TMS issue was FEAR OF AGING. I still feel that's true--and you're not the only one. In Kali it's against the law to grow old--or up.
According to Dr. Sarno, you don't need to do any psycho-archaeology, (I was also an anthro/archaeology major and got *A*s in that subject too), to get TMS "healed". If you want to that's your choice, it's ruminating, psycho-babbling and arguing about how many neuroses you can get into a pin-head. it will only slow your recovery to live life but it will continue providing you the psychological defense mechanism as a DISTRACTION and a PROTECTOR.
As my brother told be when I was in a TMS/clinical depression, buy a house and fix it up for a positive distraction--that's what works for him, buying a cool car and driving it cross country works for me. Get in your motor home and see the good ol' USA and leave your cares and woes behind.
Cheers & G'Luck,
tt/lsmft
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DR. SARNO'S 12 DAILY REMINDERS:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0dKBFwGR0g
TAKE THE HOLMES-RAHE STRESS TEST
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmes_and_Rahe_stress_scale
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Edited by - tennis tom on 03/08/2013 11:31:26 |
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eric watson
USA
601 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2013 : 10:49:35
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Rik tom and dave just hit it on the head, cant get any plainer-less you just want to talk psychological- i know your in pain Rik- the only way out is to take good honest advice and stop trying to figure every cell out- its impossible to figure out the mechanism other than its
main drive is to protect you- we dont heal by figuring out the mechanism- we heal by believing what sarno said do- and you can add in aces keys too, cause you are tense. your a very good person.
but if you want to heal, you gotta get with the program man. |
Edited by - eric watson on 03/08/2013 10:51:35 |
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All1Spirit
USA
149 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2013 : 13:04:43
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First of all I am not a “program” type guy and while I respect many great thinkers and concepts to buy the whole cow when you really just need a pair of shoes does not work for me. And to believe in a paradigm that may be based on a partial or faulty premise is not what I want.
I know this is a Sarno group and anytime you challenge the “Group” beliefs there is resistance.
So to explore the premise is this: do old supposed trapped emotions cause TMS or anything. I doubt you can find any proof other than antidotal reports.
Do thoughts, beliefs and stories we have right now today have an effect on the nervous system that can cause TMS....absolutely. I can hook anyone up to a GSR and EMG biofeedback and watch a thought change your sweat glands in a finger in less than 10 seconds. I can watch your masseter, temporalis and spinalis muscles send out storms of electrical activity in seconds.
I can confront you with an emotionally charged word and watch your breathing become shallow and rapid, watch your carbon dioxide drop which excites every neuron the body and shuts off oxygen to the muscles and tenses them.
So the question is if we can measure, with great accuracy, the physiological response to a negative emotion and that response causes the very body reactions that create TMS are we not slowing recovery with the focus on retrograde emotional pain.
It should also be noted that in the 1980’s psychodynamic causations were all the rage. There were dozens of books written on the mind causing almost every disease and pathological condition known. It is probably no great leap that Dr. Sarno’s theory came out of this period.
I have no doubt that TMS is a mind/body condition – and I think people are recovering from some of the TMS program protocols suggested here and in other books. With any treatment it is sometimes the ancillary parts that enact the cure and not the primary premise. In the great flu epidemics that killed millions people were told to stay indoors because the night air was causing the illness. Well staying indoors prevented people from congregating and spreading the virus but it was not the night air causing it.
Perhaps if we step outside the Sarno box and the Sarno clone physicians we can learn more direct ways of recovery. So if I am unsure about Sarno why am I on a Sarno group – to learn and to listen. In between the dogma I see patterns that suggest more in going on than what we think is.
"Around and Around the Circle We Go....
The Answer Sits In The Middle and Knows..." |
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Dave
USA
1864 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2013 : 15:17:08
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Your ideas are certainly interesting, and would make a great topic for a Ph.D. thesis. But does it help recovery from TMS?
quote:
I know this is a Sarno group and anytime you challenge the “Group” beliefs there is resistance.
Resistance is the word you choose. I prefer debate.
quote:
So the question is if we can measure, with great accuracy, the physiological response to a negative emotion and that response causes the very body reactions that create TMS are we not slowing recovery with the focus on retrograde emotional pain.
Measuring a symptom does nothing to answer the question of what caused the physiological response in the first place. It is the chicken and egg scenario. Can your accurate measurements prove that focusing on negative emotions slow recovery?
Long ago, medicine accepted the fact that stress causes ulcers. It was pretty revolutionary at the time. More recently, researchers discovered that H. Plyori bacteria was the true cause of ulcers, and they dismissed the idea that stress played any role. This is an example where our ability to measure something actually caused medical science to take a step backwards. Nobody cared to explain why some people with H. Plyori did not get ulcers. Nobody considered the possibility that the bacteria became pathological due to a suppressed immune system response caused by psychological factors. Again, it is the chicken and egg scenario. Is H. Plyori the cause of ulcers, or simply the physiological response the brain uses to induce the symptom? There are many more examples in "modern" medicine, such as the discovery that depression was merely a chemical imbalance. And of course, now we have dozens of pills to "cure" it.
The sad thing is, the doctors who bravely concluded that stress caused ulcers had it right, but they were undermined by their successors who had better microscopes. Will we say the same thing about Dr. Sarno in 30 years?
quote:
Perhaps if we step outside the Sarno box and the Sarno clone physicians we can learn more direct ways of recovery.
I hope there are people actively doing this. I would applaud any medical research that embraces the mindbody connection and accepts the fact that the brain can create symptoms. If that research proves aspects of Dr. Sarno's theory to be incorrect, so be it. If that research leads to more "direct ways of recovery" I welcome it.
However, when it comes to people looking for recovery from their symptoms, stepping "outside the Sarno box" is likely to be counterproductive. His methods are proven to be successful. It requires embracing certain knowledge that challenge many common medical beliefs. It requires a long-term view of recovery, rather than holding out hope for a magic bullet. It requires a lot of persistence to fight through the many roadblocks to achieving and maintaining the proper mindset. Personally, I do not believe there is a more "direct" way of recovery. The reconditioning process takes dedication and time. Those who try to find shortcuts or alternate treatment methods are likely to set themselves back as the unconscious mind seizes the opportunity to turn doubt into disbelief and derail our recovery. |
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Dr James Alexander
Australia
127 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2013 : 18:19:13
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Rik. Good points raised. I think we are talking about different populations. There are some people (an unknown proportion) who clearly get better from reading TMS books, and following suggestions such as journaling- many of these people are active on the forums and can testify to this reality. It appears that a combination of information and self reflection are up to the job for these people (I was one of these). And then there are some people for whom this more simple intervention is not adequate- they are also on the forum, and report to not getting better despite journaling and reading etc. I cant offer any clear suggestions as to why this difference exists- i dont think it has to do with the intensity of distress, ie. i dont think it is 'light weight' problems which resolve easily and quickly with just information (I was highly traumatised from nearly being killed; and there are people who have not been traumatised at all, but their TMS seems more indelible). Is it to do with the degree of openness to the general proposition? Perhaps. Sarno saw more than 20,000 chronic pain patients in his career- this is an enormous sample- probably more than anyone else alive. As such, while i dont think he suffers from Papal type infallibility, I think it is worth listening to him when he says that unless people accept and internalise the TMS model (or some very close variations of it), including the idea that unconscious distress necessitates chronic pain as a protective strategy, then people will not get better using these ideas. That is, to half entertain these notions is not sufficient to change the pain. Nor is hanging on to physical therapy likely to result in a resolution. Its not that people have to follow this advice, but it they want to get better from the TMS approach, these seem to be pretty central tenants. Not everyone (who is entertaining this approach) is equally committed to or convinced of the merits of these ideas- thats OK- their choice.
People who do not get better from information and self reflection will probably benefit from appropriate types of psychotherapy (again, as per Sarno's suggestions). It is not that this approach is no good for them- it is that they need additional help, beyond what information and self reflection can provide. There may be a tendency to write the approach off as it hasnt worked for them, but perhaps they need the information, self reflection and appropriate therapy? (my personal experience is that good therapy without the good information is not sufficient to resolve chronic pain though- both seem to be needed for some people, with the information being necessary but sometimes not sufficient in its own right).
There are certainly implicit memories which are laid down in our pre-verbal stage of development, and if these are from upsetting experiences, they will be evident in emotional patterns rather than in auto-biographical memory. And there is certainly a whole neurology to this, as with everything else in humans. It is not correct that these implicit memories (and their associated feeling states, cognitive patterns and schemas, physiological reactions) are indelible- they can be changed in so far as the emotional charge can be taken out of the implicit memory- this is referred to as re-consolidation, and is well researched and demonstrated in neuroscience. There may be some spontaneous experiences which aid in reconsolidation/ We do no know that this can happen in certain experimental conditions, and these are replicated in certain psychotherapeutic processes (see Bruce Eckers recent book: Unlocking the Emotional Brain). This therapeutic reconsolidation does require that people revisit the upsetting/traumatic event in vivid detail (in their imaginations, under the guidance of a therapist)- then specific procedures can be undertaken in which the emotional sting of the experience is removed from the memory (there are variations of how this can be done also with implicit memories, and those for which there is no conscious recall due to being laid down in pre-verbal ages). How much can people do this on their own? Eric offers his experience of doing it for himself, and he is no doubt on his own in this. It can be done very effectively with certain approaches to therapy, e.g brief psychoanalytic approaches as used by Sarno's psychologists, Coherence Therapy, EMDR, some Gestalt practices, some NLP practices etc.
When people are journaling as part of their attempt at a 'book cure' from TMS, they are simply raising their level of awareness about the pertinent issues. This may or may not be therapeutic in terms of TMS. The simple raising of awareness may be sufficient to effect change; or it may simply trigger more distress and reinforce their distress around certain experiences- the latter would be a good indicator of the need to seek professional help. It cannot be taken for granted that revisiting past hurts will by necessity simply reinforce painful neural pathways- it is also a necessary component of the reconsolidation process, whereby the outcome is being able to recall bad events but no longer being emotionally or physiologically aroused when connecting with the memories. This outcome ties in with the treatment of TMS as it is these memories/emotions which are generally what the pain is being created about. Deal with them (as per reconsoldiation) and there will be no further need for our mind/brain to generate pain as a deflection.
James |
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bjackson034
USA
19 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2013 : 18:27:11
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| Very interesting post, Allspirit, made me think. |
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Beyond Sarno
