I'm UOTE="plum, post: 79190, member: 1340"]My darling, in the end all roads lead to Rome. As
@Tennis Tom explains, we may never really know what the heck is going on. Every now and then different people give the TMS school of thought a robust shakedown and it survives every time because at heart it is bang on the money.
Here is a comment I left on a thread the last time we kicked the theory about. The OP was contesting the validity of neuroscience:
***
"Sweetheart, Sarno couldn't espouse neuroplasticity because the field of neuroscience barely existed at the time he wrote. It was a subdivision of medicine with a nod to the psychological but there were pioneering doctors writing about the effects of emotion and tension on the body way back in the 40's and 50's.
I found an old notebook recently in which I wrote out a couple of quotes from The MindBody Prescription. Sarno is writing on the subject of conversion disorders and suggests they have the same underlying processes as TMS. It reads as follows:
"The crucial point is that the symptoms are not the result of damage or disease of specific body parts. They are perceived as weakness, pain, numbness or blindness only because the appropriate brain cells have been fired off...one set of brain cells is stimulated by other brain cells, in this case the stimulating cells are those having to do with powerful unconscious emotions...What's important is not the method the brain uses to produce symptoms; it is the fact that the brain is inducing symptoms...keeping Dr. Perts work in mind...it is only difficult to explain at a fundamental level, the level of the black box."
The accompanying diagram begins with The Limbic System and breaks down the process, passing through "the black box" through activation of the hypothalamus and onto the Autonomic system. At this point Sarno's own diagram says TMS happens.
What neuroscientists and pioneers like Schubiner and Hanscom are doing is simply explaining the black box that Sarno described. They have gained access and are exploring the magnificence and mystery of it and I am sure John Sarno keeps a friendly, interested eye on the discoveries. His brilliance is not diminished by science, only enhanced.
We are in the midst of a paradigm shift and it is wonderful. It is also wonderful that more and more people are healing due to these insights. This is cause for celebration.
Cast your eyes upward to the title of this forum. It is called The Mindbody SyndromeDiscussion Forum. Not the Tension Myositis Syndrome. All contributions are welcomed and embraced because they all add to our understanding of the black box and in so doing we are able to translate the wisdom of these discoveries into healing."
***
Sometimes people need a more expansive healing path or they need a more scientific basis on which to place their faith and for these folk the neuroscientific explanation works well. Neurological issues are not strictly structural and emotional elements are not wholly psychological, there is a huge and mysterious interplay.
Theories aside our woes are caused by our habits of thought (a.k.a. beliefs), our experiences and subsequent reactivity, our stress levels, our emotional repetoire and our general state of well being.
Psychological or neurological? Treat both these imposters the same because the healing remains the same.
Plum x[/QUOTE]
As usual, Plum leaves me in awe with her compassion and wisdom all delivered in beautiful eloquence... Thank you Plum. You know? It may not be my place to say, but it's intended only as a heartfelt compliment. You may have missed your calling. You would have been a superior counselor, motivational speaker, teacher... So many possibilities... You have a gift.
How gracious and kind you and all the others on this site are to give, not just of their time, but of their hearts... To help others, whose pain is sometimes beyond description.. I'm grateful to you for soothing some of my fears away and helping me cling to that mustard seed of hope..
With love, Nancy
