Is fixating harming or can it ever help? Newbie here.

K

karipro

Newcomer
I'm new to this kind of concept of therapy. I'm open to it, even if I think that I have structural issues but my anxiety and hypersensitivity is exacerbating my pain.

This is probably a no-brainer question, but does constantly Googling, fixating the problem, or how to reduce feed the pain loop? Or, can it serve as a way to reinforce safety?

I can’t stop trying googling CRPS or asking ChatGPT to diagnose me.

I have been dealing with left foot pain and essentially immobility for over 6 months now. My life as I knew it, walking with my daughter, hikes, gardening, etc is on its head and I fear I will be this way forever.

Kari
 
Hi! If your Googling and 'AI-ing' is helping you understand and rule out medical/structural explanations, then it could be helping you work your way towards feeling safe in viewing your pain as mind-body/TMS. However, it can also get you going down endless rabbit holes and reinforce the fear.

karipro said:
I'm open to it, even if I think that I have structural issues... I can’t stop trying googling CRPS or asking ChatGPT to diagnose me.
Click to expand...
Atm, it seems that, although you're "open to it" being mind-body/TMS, you're more open to your foot pain being structural because that's what you're Googling and AI-ing about. Atm, you're seemingly more open to believing it's something structural that might leave you in "this way forever" than mind-body/TMS that's temporary. That's not a criticism of you personally. It's more that when the brain perceives a threat, it can keep directing your attention towards potential danger and uncertainty. So even though you're open to the possibility of mind-body/TMS, your attention may keep getting pulled back towards the structural explanation and the fear that your pain will never go away.

My suggestion is to consider putting the Googling/AI-ing on the back burner for a while and instead spending some time learning about the mind-body approach. For example, reading Howard Schubiner's Unlearn Your Pain (the latest edition published in 2026) could give you a more coherent understanding of mind-body/TMS and could be more helpful than repeatedly searching individual symptoms and diagnoses.

The aim would be to become familiar enough with the mind-body explanation that you can start considering it as a genuine possibility rather than continually needing to investigate the structural one.

I'm assuming, of course, that you've had appropriate medical evaluation for your foot pain.
 
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