• Alan has completed the new Pain Recovery Program. To read or share it, use this updated link: https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/painrecovery/
  • Welcome to the new TMS Wiki server! Things aren't finished yet: email is not set up, so notification and password-reset emails don't go out, and new registrations are paused until email is installed. Details and updates are in this thread (click here). Locked out? Email tmswikisignups@gmail.com from the address where you receive TMS Wiki notifications.

It works when I use it!

V

vitaspalo

Newcomer
I'm new to this forum but not new to Dr. Sarno's work. I had a neck injury in college in 1988 and then had 13 years of chronic, sometimes debilitating pain, doctor bills, various treatments, etc - fortunately never surgery. Then one evening in 2001 as I was on my way from work to meet my wife at a marriage counselor, I was running early and stopped a grocery store to get a snack. At the checkout, I saw a book: Mind over Back Pain by Dr. John Sarno. Never heard of him and it probably won't work, I thought, but I'll try anything at this point. Then a few minutes later I was at the counselor's office where I was introduced to the work of Dr. Murray Bowen and Bowen Family Systems Theory. Not to get further off track on that, but I recommend BFST to anybody - it focuses a lot on dealing with our own anxiety as we interact with other people - fits well with the study of TMS. So basically that night in 2001 changed my life.

My neck pain was TMS, I learned; partial relief came within days but full relief has been hit and miss over the years - it's my warning sign that I'm internalizing anger and guilt. I've also read The Mindbody Prescription and The Divided Mind a few times over the years.

But the funny thing is how I just forget what I've learned. In 2011 I started having rotator cuff pain induced, so I thought, by the Tae Kwon Do practice I did regularly. I forgot all about TMS and went down the diagnostic treatment and therapy path for a couple years before I came to my senses. Same story - quick partial relief of TMS, some ongoing pain that reminds me I still have work to do - and I know the pain is TMS not "structural" because it moves around.

So in the past few years I've started having arthritis in my hands - usually mild but sometimes very painful. I've started thinking maybe I need to get some sort of treatment... until today I just realized it's probably my sneaky mind's new flavor of TMS. So I was looking online for any references to Dr. Sarno, TMS and arthritis, which led me to this forum. Glad to find this group of like minded people.
 
vitaspalo said:
the funny thing is how I just forget what I've learned.
Click to expand...
Funny, yes. And SOOOOOOO universal. But honestly, sometimes the best thing we can do is to laugh at our poor pathetic primitive brains.

That's a great intro, @vitaspalo! Minimal emphasis on the physical, maximum emphasis on the psychological. You've got this! We have a ton of great resources here so welcome to them!

As an almost-thirteen year veteran of this work, I know that the TMS mechanism is a normal brain function, which doesn't work well in the modern world, and which goes into overdrive in highly sensitive individuals, for MANY different reasons - many of them, as you've already learned, going back to childhood.

Permanent 100% recovery is a myth - but what I and many others know is that you can get to a point where that realization of "oh, wait - is this TMS?" becomes quicker and more automatic, and where symptoms don't need to last more than a few days - sometimes not more than a few hours, in fact. Immersing yourself into a program is the way to get to this point, where you can develop skills to pull yourself out of a setback.

Check out one of our two free programs - the Structured Educational Program and Alan Gordon's Recovery Program - both accessed from the main tmswiki.org page (although Alan's program uses the forum as its platform). Not just free - no registration or signup is needed, you just do them. I only ever did the SEP because Alan's program didn't exist back in 2011. It's a little outdated (there are dead links and going through them is time-consuming for a volunteer-run site) but it still returns enormous benefits.

There are lots of other programs out there as well. Drs. Schunbiner and Schecter both have workbooks (I think the SEP is sort of based on them), there's the Curable app, Nicole Sachs' paid resources in addition to her amazing podcast - and many others. Read threads on the Success Stories subforum for inspiration, and if you're interested, check out my profile page where I've listed a lot of my favorite resources.

Keep us posted - that's what we're here for!

~Jan
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top