Day 16: Sensory Reprocessing and Systematic Desensitization
In November of 1956, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev attended a reception at the Polish Embassy in Moscow. Addressing a group of Western ambassadors, he uttered the phrase, “My vas pokhoronim.”
This was translated to mean “We will bury you.”
Given that it was the height of the Cold War, this was no small declaration. The translated quote was published in newspapers across the country, terrifying millions of Americans that nuclear war imminent.
There was no danger though – it was a misinterpretation.
Khrushchev was simply talking about his faith in communism’s staying power.
Sensory Reprocessing
When you have an injury, a danger signal is sent to your spinal cord via nerve fibers. The signal is then passed up the spinal cord on to your brain. Your brain correctly interprets the message, and you feel pain.
TMS is simply a misinterpretation of danger.
Your brain is interpreting a safe message as if it’s dangerous, and processing pain as a result.
One way to overcome TMS is simply to expose this misinterpretation.
Sensory reprocessing involves teaching your brain that the message it’s interpreting as dangerous is actually safe.
On Day 4 of the program, you met Felicia, a woman who felt pain when she would turn her neck.
We used sensory reprocessing to teach her brain that it was simply misinterpreting safe sensations as dangerous.
Watch this section of the clip again, with that in mind:
Even if we know logically that our pain is psychogenic, our primitive brains don’t.
One way to deactivate our danger signals is to gently communicate the following message to ourselves:
“This unpleasant sensation I’m feeling does not mean that there’s anything wrong with me, it’s simply my brain misinterpreting the messages that it’s getting. These sensations are completely safe.”
It’s important to remember that the goal is not to get rid of the pain. In fact, the very nature of trying to get rid of our pain involves a sense of urgency – which subcommunicates a message of danger as opposed to safety.
Over time, sensory reprocessing can allow your brain to self-correct – learning to accurately interpreting the messages it receives.
On the Road
John Madden was a Hall-of-Fame NFL broadcaster. Every season from 1979-2009, he traveled from city to city to announce the games.
His first year on the job, he was flying out of Tampa, and before the plane even took off, he had a panic attack.
“You think you’re going to die,” he said, “I was sweating, shaking…the whole thing.”
A few weeks later, he got back on a plane, and had another panic attack. And then it happened a third time.
After that, he bought a bus. And for 30 years he drove around the country, and never stepped foot on a plane again.
Systematic Desensitization
The only way to change our relationship with fear is through exposure. But sometimes, like with John Madden, exposure alone can just lead to a deepening of our phobias.
To overcome fear, we often need repeated exposure while having corrective experiences (ie. getting simultaneous messages of safety or empowerment).
Systematic desensitization is a great technique to safely increase your exposure to a fearful stimulus – in our case, psychogenic pain.
It incorporates anxiety regulation and gradual exposure, progressively teaching your brain that the pain is not actually dangerous.
On Days 9 and 10 of the program, we covered somatic tracking – how to attend to the physical sensations of anxiety in your body, without fear, and without ulterior motive.
Often the question comes up, “Can I do the same thing with the pain?”
Yes, but there’s an additional challenge. It’s difficult to focus on our pain without fear and without ulterior motive – because we’re so used to being scared of it and wanting it to be gone.
But with gradual exposure, you can learn to attend to the pain without fear and motive. And once you’re able to do this – authentically – your brain will learn that these sensations are not dangerous, and the pain will eventually fade.
The following is an audio exercise using systematic desensitization to help you mindfully attend to painful sensations.
As you practice the techniques of sensory reprocessing and systematic desensitization, please share in the comments below what comes up for you and how you feel. I’ll be checking in throughout the day.
![[IMG]](http://www.tmswiki.org/image/brain.png)
