I do believe in the mechanism you just described so well. I have experienced it. The problem is that it is not consistent perhaps because the variables change. I know the mind can heal, but I also know that many times what we think was the mind was actually the body that healed itself, which it would have done anyways, whether we involved the mind or not. When I got that monster mass in the abdomen, I did practice Qi-Gong to help my body heal and in fact 3 months later the mass that the surgeons had not been able to remove had disappeared and they were baffled. However one of the two surgeons said that what happened wasn’t a miracle but that because they did manage to remove a very large fibroid - but not the other mass- that was pressing on the iliac vein, that cut the feed to the giant hemangioma so it started clotting and eventually disappeared. So whether I did qi-gong, mental healing or not, the result would have been the same. The problem with all those theories is that they are partly true, the mind can actually heal, but not every time and not everything, and the key is to be able to differentiate between what is and what is not possible.
I do find Sarno’s concept very interesting and hopeful, but somehow incomplete as far as these questions go.For example, I don’t think the repressed emotions are necessarily rage, they may be fear, dissociation, or may be caused by ones genetic nervous system nature, we’re all different. In that light am not so sure focusing narrowly on repressed emotions may be helpful for everyone, but learning to recognize the sensation of tension in the body may be more useful and then pay attention to what thoughts or feelings may come with it, so as to be able to ‘read’ oneself and one’s body in a practical way. Insisting on telling people to look for repressed emotions or trauma, may push some people away because they cannot relate to that, but they could potentially learn to recognize the sensation of tension in their body and go from there into their emotions and state of mind. Some sort of biofeedback monitor would be very helpful I think to achieve that. I sure would love something that could help me realize the tension in my body.
It’s not that people may not want to heal, everybody wants to heal and get rid of the pain, and i believe hidden rewards for being sick or suffering, even though valid, are not that common for the majority of people, other things may be going on, like communication problems with doctors due to language barriers for example. I’ve seen a lot of immigrants ending up disabled not because they want the benefits but because they cannot communicate well with the doctors and the doctors dismiss them, are suspicious of them and blacklist them. Women are also ‘discriminated’ against in a similar way because of the stereotype of the ‘hysteric’ female for example. The result being delayed healing or chronic problems from something that was initially minor. If patients do not feel believed and respected, I think there’s a negative vicious cycle that is created that prevents healing. Many people are being told it is all in their head, and kicked out the door. That creates even more resistance. These people don’t respond well to bodymind theories, they tend to stick to their guns and resist the idea, exactly because they don’t feel believed and they’re in a battle to prove they’re telling the truth. All these psycho-social factors play a tremendous role in whether a person heals well or at all. That’s why I think we have to be very careful on how we talk to someone about this because their issue may or may not be possible to heal with TMS work and they may need more diagnostic tests instead.
That’s why I think we should start with ‘I believe you’, ‘your pain is real’ as Sarno says, to prevent the defensive reaction that causes even more tension, and focus more on learning/teaching the skill to recognize tension in one’s body - perhaps with the help of a biofeedback system- and then gently guide people into the exploration of their thoughts/sensations/emotions while doing this. Perhaps hypnosis might be helpful with that?I don’t know. The important thing is for the person to learn how to recognize TMS, manage to associate it with whatever is there in their psyche and learn how to release it and eventually trigger the healing process.
