Is anyone doing anything for TMS/mindbody syndrome to be recognised by General Medicine???

[Dave81]

Hi good people,

I do apologise if this question has been asked before.
As the above, is anyone anywhere in the world doing anything for TMS/mindbody syndrome to be recognised and accepted by mainstream medicine?
This would certainly help a lot of people and vanish a lot of pain and suffering.

As I live in the UK has anyone got an idea where to start from or join some sort of a petition?

Thanks,

 

[miffybunny]

I think it's going to be a long road for a few reasons. Paradigm shifts in society can take centuries. That's one problem. We are up against hundreds of years of Western medicine that ignores the role of psychology. We are also up against powerful billion dollar industries of pharmaceutical companies and the medical industry (surgery, treatments, injections) as well as the alternative industries (chiropractors etc etc etc). I've had personal experience in the world of autism with my son. The methodology they are still using ("The Gold Standard") is ABA which is an extremely archaic approach based entirely on behaviorism. Although there are other approaches, ABA is big business and they have a stranglehold on schools and home services for autistic kids/adults. I see many parallels with the vulnerability of people with chronic pain, and parents of autistic children: no known cause, no cure, poor treatment options, a whole world of charlatans claiming to have special biomedical "cures" and profiting from this desperation.

I know that the TMS wiki is one of the organizations trying to spread the word and so are many members and practitioners but unfortunately people want a magic bullet or a pill or some miracle to happen. It can be so disheartening but it's the nature of paradigm shifts imo.

 

[Dave81]

It's not going to be easy that's for sure! You never know we might be able to see it done in our lifetime.
Yes, it's true it is more than dust in the eyes of a lot of people. It does throw in the trash 40-50 years of research and medicine if not more. The doctors themselves, they spend 6-7 years studying and then God knows how long specialising, teaching old dogs new tricks is difficult, but not impossible, at least not for all of them.
It most definitely can be the magic pill as it has been for many. It doesn't have to to be a straight swap, after all dr. Sarno himself used it along side other treatment in the beginning, basically have to start somewhere!
Imagine going to the doctors' and instead of being told that your foot is never going to be the same, you hear it's TMS, it's very painful and paralysing, but it's not dangerous! This will most definitely speed up recovery!

So where do we start?
Anyone in UK any ideas?

 

[Hydrlysis]

The field of neuroscience/chronic pain research is producing high quality evidence that supports TMS. The evidence is building over time and eventually it will become absolutely overwhelming, and not possible to disregard. Unfortunately, people don't like losing their livelihoods (injections, surgeries, chiros, massage, etc..) So the change will take multiple generations.

 

[Duggit]

The field of neuroscience/chronic pain research is producing high quality evidence that supports TMS. The evidence is building over time and eventually it will become absolutely overwhelming, and not possible to disregard.

I agree, and I think there are glimmerings that this is starting to happen. Neuroscientist Lorimer Moseley is a leading researcher regarding the neuroimmunology of chronic pain. Two years ago, the Department of Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine at the University of Washington brought him over from Adelaide, Australia for a couple days to lecture on the subject and interact informally with faculty and students. Previously, the University of Iowa Medical School had done much the same thing. Perhaps other medical schools I don't know about have done that, too.

Drs. Allan Abbass and Howard Schubiner published a book in 2018 aimed at educating physicians and other healthcare providers about how to diagnose and treat TMS and TMS equivalents (which they instead call psychophysiologic disorders, or PPD for short). Their book is titled Hidden from View: A Clinician's Guide to Psychophysiologic Disorders. They state the thesis of their book as follows: "Our premise is that medically unexplained illnesses are psychophysiologic: the brain creates these symptoms in response to psychological stress via learned neural pathways." (The italicized emphasis is theirs not mine.) I have no idea how well the book has been received by physicians, but at least is it based on neuroscience rather than Freudian structural theory that underlies Sarno's work and turns off many physicians as being too unscientific. In my view, they could have made a stronger case in support of their thesis by going into more detail on the (fascinating to me) biology of neural pathways, but perhaps they made a decision that it was better to write a short book that a busy physician might be willing too take the time to read rather than a long book that would likely be ignored.

 

[Avnita Suri]

Love your question.
I did a talk for the chronic pain department of a reputable hospital in north west London about 3 years ago.
They laughed at me and showed me the door.
I just carried on helping those who were willing to listen.
I don't waste my time now trying to convert, convince or justify my work to anyone.