Connecting Pain (Day 8)

[Justina]

Are you having success at recognizing the emotions connected to your pain? If you have, how do these emotions make you feel? If not, what do you think is preventing you from doing this?

This is a great question to reflect on. I have a pretty good idea what issues have caused my pain. The trouble is they're such long term and deep seated issues about family, my own direction and social problems that I have no idea how to tackle them. My psychologist and I "broke up" this week and I don't have the strength to make attempt number four of finding someone who can help.

 

[Beach-Girl]

Hmmm. That is a problem. Is there a way to repair this relationship with your therapist? Or is this what you wanted? I too "dumped" my therapist when I discovered I had TMS, that it was related to my anxiety big time, and my therapist and I were getting nowhere. She went out and bought "Unlearn Your Pain" by Dr. Schubiner, and also Dr. Sarno's "MindBody Prescription". I was a little blown away because now she has a base to speak from.

But I don't think seeing my therapist is helping as much as I'd like. However, I am getting a lot out of working these programs. I did the SEP here on the wiki, then Dr. Schubiner's "Unlearn Your Pain" program. Both were excellent and I learned quite a bit about myself. If you want to try and go it alone I'd say that these programs are a great start. There are many TMS therapists available through the wiki that might be in your area.

Hang in there and follow the bread-crumbs. You will get better!

BG

 

[veronica73]

Hi Justina,

Sorry to hear it didn't work out with your therapist.

Beach Girl posted the link to TMS therapists above--there wasn't one in my area that I could easily get to (I'm car-free) so I'm working with another TMS therapist by phone & skype and she's great! So that might be something to consider too.

Take care,
Veronica

 

[Justina]

It was a mutual "break up" between my therapist and I. She was only interested in one style of therapy (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and I wasn't interested in learning it. Our sessions went something like:

Therapist: When you find youself having a negative thought distance yourself from it by considering the form and strucutre of the thought rather than the thought itself. Do you understand?
Me: No.
Therapist: For example, focus on the colour of the throught or the direction it's travelling in. Do you understand that?
Me: ... Yes. (Me being polite, lol)
Therapist: Well, if you don't want to try that you could watch TV to distract yourself.
Me: I don't find TV very distracting, I usually do something while I'm watching TV.
Therapist: Maybe you should find a TV show you do find distracting and watch that.

It was pretty obvious we were wasting each other's time. :/ Thanks, BG, I'll keep going with the Structured Program and I've ordered Unlearn Your Pain. I've had a few breakthrough moments with the program so far, which have really helped. I think I need to understand that this is going to be a long, slow process and I can't rush it.

Veronica, do you find Skype therapy useful? My closest TMS therapist is 700km away and I've emailed him about Skype sessions but... it just feels a bit odd.

Thank you both for your help.

 

[chumba]

Justina, looks like your in Aus like me. I havent found many people including health proffessionals that understand or even know about tms.Amazingly one of the few who seems to take to the concepts is my neurologist.

I found that reading and doing structured programs is helping me more than my therapist. I had a lot of success and now Im at a point of working on my thinking. Uncovering and dealing with my suppressed emotions, and there were a lot of them around family and childhood issues, helped a lot but I now believe that one of the most criticl parts is seeing and dealing with the thinking ptterns Ive developed.

While Im tempted to go back to a therapist it would only work if they believe in tms, and since I cant find that I think books, forums and journalling is not a bad option. Have you had medical confirmation that there is nothing underlying or seriously wrong?

 

[veronica73]

Hi Justina,

Psychodynamic therapy is supposed to be better for treating TMS...I've done cognitive behavioral therapy before for treating anxiety and it did help me a LOT but I felt like I needed to do something else this time around.

We actually haven't skyped yet--just phone--but we'll probably start that soon. She's really good. And I like the phone so I'm fine with it.

~ Veronica

 

[Justina]

Thanks chumba, I'll keep going with the books, program and journaling and see how I go.

Have you had medical confirmation that there is nothing underlying or seriously wrong?

Yup. Blood tests, x-rays, physical exams, nerve conduction, physio, the works... My neurologists diagnosed me with Functional Symptoms which, to me, sounds like TMS but leaves the treatment in the hands of medical professionals. I do not want antidepressants and a permanent physiotherapist. I want to understand my symptoms and get rid of them!

Thanks for the advice Veronica, glad to hear your therapist is helping.

 

[Forest]

Justina, I am sorry to hear you had some difficulties with your therapist. I have had some similar experiences where I just didn't really connect with therapy and the approach. A large portion of therapy is about the connection and if you and your therapist just think differently then it probably is a good idea to part ways. It doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with you or the therapist. It just wasn't a good match.

Speaking of the idea of therapy and how it relates to TMS, Steve Ozanich recently talked about this in a post in the thread TMS The Man Sarno. He says

Your therapist should know about TMS. Dr. Sarno sometimes sent people to his psychologists, there's nothing wrong with that, in fact it's a great idea if everyone saw one now and then. But the good doctor said that sometimes the psychologists would call him back and say, "hey your patient is straying." So he would call the patient back to his office and begin again. What that means is that the patient felt that he or she was supposed to talk about their life, and childhood and spousal problems, etc. And as he said, "that's all well and good" but the purpose is supposed to be to connect the symptoms to the emotions, and then to sever them. So, talking about your problems can be cathartic, but it's not the concept behind TMS therapy. Your therapist should be helping you connect your health issues to your psychological state. So they need to have some idea of mindbody disorders, if not, hopefully they will be open to learn about it. Give them a copy of the good doctor's book or even my book and tell them this is what you're working on. tell them you know you have TMS and you need help with TMS healing.

Exploring some of the deep issues that may come up in TMS will be helpful for our long term helath and will probably benefit us is a lot of different ways. However, it may not be all that necessary to get really deep to recover from TMS symptoms. It sounds like the real key to TMS therapy is to connect the symptoms to the emotions and then sever them.

This tends to be true in my own recovery as well. I identified some of the issues, but didn't really explore them all that much. I just increased my activity level and changed how I viewed my symptoms. Of course everyone is different and exploring some of these issues may still have a very positive affect on our lives. It just may not be entirely necessary to recover from TMS. I would love to hear if other people who recovered find this to be true to their experience.

 

[Beach-Girl]

I would love to hear if other people who recovered find this to be true to their experience.

Well this is essentially where I find myself. I'm at a place where I'm fairly in touch with "me" - but I continue to have pain. I am consistently trying to think "psychological" rather than "physical" at this point. It works for awhile, but then again I'm faced with quite a bit of stress these days. So I find I give myself breaks on how I'm doing.

It'll happen. Of this I have no doubt.

BG