Chapter 7 of The Great Pain Deception

Hello, everyone...

Steve Ozanich's The Great Pain Deception is a great read, and I take notes for my own use as I read in order to get as much as I can from it. Since the book group is doing the chapter today, I thought I'd share my notes with the group. They are, of course, just my personal thoughts. Feel free to comment!

Notes:


The placebo effect is caused by a belief in both the ritual (treatment, surgery) and the effector (practitioner). While this can give people relief for a time, it is never permenant because it does not get to the truth of their problem, i.e. emotional issues.

Doctors prescribe these treatments many times knowing their ineffectiveness, but do so because they are profitable, i.e. steroid injections.

Many people suggest that chiropractors heal them, but this is still the placebo at work. The person in question, say after a car wreck, would be healing regardless of the treatment as part of their bodies natural healing process. The chiropractor simply speeds this up because the person believes it is helping. If a person understands that pain does not come from stuctural misalignment then there is no problem with having a chiropractic adjustment. However this should be done with extreme caution, as manipulation often perpetuates the pain.

There is an eloquent phrase about the need to accept the diagnosis at the start of the chapter on page 135: “A belief must be strong enought for the unconscious to ‘accept’ for healing to take place, whether what is accepted is from a placebo or from a real theruapuetic measure.”

How can TMSers use the Placebo to their advantage?

In this chapter Steve discusses how TMS healing involves gaining a new awareness. What sort of awareness have you found through your own TMS journey? How can this go beyond understanding our pain is due to repressed emotions?

If you are aware that something, such as back surgery, could be a placebo would the placebo effect still occur?

One theme in this chapter is that people go to doctors to receive a miracle cure. People want a physician to give them a quick cure, which Steve calls the just cut it out of me and let me move on mentality. What issues and factors are behind this mentality? Is it possible to overcome this?
This even comes up in TMS recovery in terms of the desire to have the book cure and recovery in a week. Why are we so impatient in our recoveries?

Most people believe that healing modalities, such as chiropractic therapy and acupuncture, are not a part of TMS healing. This is a question that comes up rather regularly, but how do you feel these treatments relate to TMS. Do they keep you thinking physical? Are there some, such as Reiki, that may be helpful?

Another theme thoughout this chapter is gaining the belief that you can recover and become pain free. This involves using the placebo effect which, as Steve puts suggests, mediates all healing. How, then, can a person use the placebo effect to their benefit in recovering from TMS? Where does the placebo effect come into play in TMS recovery.

Additional notes
Major theme of this chapter is belief

· Surgery placebo: belief in the surgery, not surgery itself, is what helped rid pain...but that wears off as real cause (emotions) still present
· Danger surrounding surgery influences subcoonscious: “the time spent preparing for the surgery and convalescing gets the individual out of the personal arena that is causing his pain” (p138)
· Patients often see surgery as a “quick fix” -- looking inward (“negotiations with the perosnal shadow”) can be a painful process
· Even if you undersatnd your pain isn’t structural, seeking out some treatments (acupucture, massage therapy, chiropractor, etc) can still be harmful: it can reinforce any unconscious ideas that pain does stem from structural abnormalities
· Dependency on doctors also stems from lack of faith in self (p135: “Sadly, people have lost faith in their own healing powers”)