Still confused which way is correct (or both)

If you feel determined to give this a good try —good for you! Stick with it and I hope it works for you. You are right it takes time with any plan.

 

Jan is saying you can pick the mindbody method that you like since most of them work as most of them have to do with lowering fear and changing the way you think about symptoms which is the crux of healing. And if you were being treated for something serious that required a psychiatric medical professional then don't disregard that just because of things you've read on the forum.

 

This is the part where I think Sam Miller should be more open. She talks about allowance as the way to resolve energy stuck in your body, which I agree. But the way she says that your brain knows exactly what is doing leaves a lot out, for example, how our amygdala is an ancient part that has trouble dealing with modern stressors. Or how there's people who gets quite better just by learning they're not in danger, or having a precise journaling breakthrough, or even getting a ketamine treatment.

I do believe TMS healing has mostly to do with exploring your pain and connecting it with emotions, but there's a lot of neuroplasticity research being made out there that might point to other approaches, for example VR treatment, or people who heals from phantom pain by using a mirror.

 

I was so fascinated with this study when I did my psych degree in college. Amazing.

 

@feduccini and @Rusty Red - YES! So fascinating! There's some remarkable literature around predictive coding in general you might find interesting as well, if you haven't already explored. Perception has such truly fascinating implications on neuroplasticity!

 

I'm taking another stab at reading Schubiner and I definitely understand feeling confused so much. I posted this in the FB TMS group tonight as my brain was exploding. Lol

How do you reconcile so many different sources saying different things? For example, Sarno said herniated discs don't cause pain. Schubiner says bulging and degenerated don't, herniated might, especially if there is pain or numbness in the arm. Hanscom read to me like almost everything back there could cause pain but shouldn't need surgery. Sometimes it feels overwhelming to determine what to believe and whether activity really is dangerous or not.

 

It reminds me of those videos where you listen to a word and have no clue what it is, and then when they tell you it becomes the clearest thing in the world hahaha

 

About Schubiner, I was checking some notes from Unlearn Your Pain and it seems to me he advocates the pain is physical in the sense that the danger activated brain creates muscular tension, and the nervous system becomes hyper sensitized interpreting these mild tensions as high pain level, aside from creating other strange sensations as heat, itching, numbness, skin sensitivity etc.

I remember a video where he explains stress and trauma stack each other and one day something triggers a reaction where they capture neuropathways to produce pain.

 

With regard to the topic of this thread of 'which is the correct way?' and Dr Howard Schubiner, @Duggit wrote this about Dr Schubiner's view regarding recovery from TMS, which indicates that any mind/body method or technique can work:

"The most brilliant overarching observation about recovery from TMS that I have seen comes from Dr. Howard Schubiner. He spent some time with Sarno to learn from him and, in my opinion, is the leading mindbody physician currently practicing in the United States. His perspective differs in some respects from Sarno’s because it incorporates contemporary neuroscience research that was unavailable when Sarno developed his approach. But Schubiner wrote in one of his books that he is proud to be counted among the whole generation of researchers and clinicians that Sarno influenced.

Schubiner’s observation:

He said a person must have

(1) a clinician he or she trusts
(2) an explanation of what is wrong with him or her
(3) a technique to fix it
(4) hope and optimism about recovering.

It is the trusted clinician, of course, who gives the afflicted person an explanation of what is wrong that he or she trusts is correct, a technique to fix it that he or she trusts will work, and the hope and optimism. If one factors out the trusted clinician because a person with TMS is trying to recover on a self-help basis, then the elements the person needs are

(1) an explanation of what is wrong (found in, say, a Sarno book or another book or online or wherever) that he or she trusts is correct
(2) a technique to fix it (found in a book or wherever) that he or she trusts will work
(3) hope and optimism that he or she will be able to implement the technique and will thereby recover."

 

The differences matter to me with trying to maintain vigorous activity. Sorry.

OP, I hope you figure out the best path for you. Good luck.

 

YESS - Sine wave speech - fascinating - The first time I was exposed to it, I was like "what kind of magic is that?" Ha ha ha - our brains are such remarkable prediction machines.
Have been immersed in all of the literature around perception for an unrelated project, but so much of it applies to TMS.