Recent content by Alan Gordon LCSW

Hi all, This is definitely legit. Shoshana works with Mark Lumley, one of the co-authors of the Boulder back pain study, (where we used a tms treatment with chronic back pain patients). The study leaders are definitely aware of the tms component to pain, and coming from a perspective of...

Hi Riley, The morning head pain is just a conditioned response. There is nothing objectively dangerous about the morning. It’s just like how some patients develop an association between pain and sitting or pain and typing, for you it’s just a time of day instead of a position or activity. The...

Amazing!

Don’t push yourself. Kids are resilient and you don’t have to be the perfect mom for her to turn out great. Cut yourself some slack, all that guilt and pressure are just further activating your danger signals. Just remember, even if you don’t sleep much, but you’re in a pretty calm, relaxed...

Ugh, that’s the worst. I had insomnia back in the day and likewise I would constantly stress out about how much sleep I was getting. You know what helped me? I took something called Midnite (it’s a form of melatonin, none of the other melatonin supplements worked for me but this one was...

Hi fishy, What a great question! So somatic tracking (paying attention to the pain without fear) is just one approach. The idea of paying attention to something else can be effective, and actually that’s the very subject of our next podcast episode coming out next Wednesday (you can find the...

Yea, you never want to do somatic tracking when the pain is that bad. At that point you just try to give yourself messages of safety and wait for it to pass. What I would suggest is that you do the technique we introduce in episode 5 (coming out tomorrow...

Great questions! First, pain is nothing more than attending to a sensation through a lens of fear. Naturally it follows that there are two ways to undermine this system: A.) Pay attention to the sensation without fear. B.) Not pay attention to the sensation at all. The first option is what...

Great response! Even more important than the technique itself is the energy with which you do the technique. Alan

I think it’s more false empowerment. I used to do that too. I’d say “bring it on!” And then brace and hope it wouldn’t come on. That technique doesn’t really work unless you’re already authentically indifferent about the pain because you know in your heart that it isn’t dangerous. We’re...

Great questions! To answer #1, it may just be that it’s too difficult for you to attend to the pain without fear right now. Which is totally fine. In episode 5, we’re going to talk about another way to overcome your symptoms without even having to attend to the pain. As far as your second...

Hi Velomoose, Somatic tracking is a technique that can help your brain reinterpret a sensation through a lens of safety. The cool thing about somatic tracking is that it doesn’t matter whether it’s pain, anxiety, fatigue, or some other sensation that you can’t quite describe. We as humans love...

Hi guys, We just did a podcast episode on somatic tracking, the single most effective technique for overcoming pain. Somatic tracking teaches your brain to reinterpret signals from your body through a lens of safety, thus deactivating the pain. In this episode we show examples of somatic...

Thanks for the feedback! We are definitely going to get into that in future episodes. In episodes 4 and 5 for instance, we’re going to show examples of people overcoming their symptoms in real time. I’ve always found that one of the most helpful things is to see the process in action.