News from Georgie Oldfield: Study Participants Needed & Webinar TODAY with Drs. Schubiner & Stracks

From: Georgie Oldfield <georgie@sirpauk.com> [Edit Address Book]
Subject: Participants required for new study + webinar
Date: Nov 7, 2017 9:27 AM
Dear Tom,
Study - participants required
I have received an email from a Psychology student who will be undertaking research with people who have recovered from chronic pain. See below for her explanation.....

"I am conducting research into how people describe the experience of having recovered from a chronic pain condition using psychological interventions. I am interested in how participants view this experience in the context of their life stories and the meaning that it has for them. My approach uses Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to examine how people make sense of major life experiences."

To find out more so you can decide whether you want to be involved, you can open up her letter of explanation for participants here. Her contact details are in the letter so please get in touch with her about this, not me.

Webinar with US Specialists
Howard Schubiner MD and John Stracks MD from the US will be running an online webinar about TMS/stress-induced conditions on 11/08/2017 05:30 PM - (Central Time) Duration:1.5 hours

You can access it via this link or by phone from the US - (563) 999-2090

Instructions: At the scheduled date and time of the meeting, dial in to the conference line. When prompted, enter the access code (703054 ) followed by hash (#). To join the online meeting, click on the meeting link listed above and follow the prompts to join the meeting.

Again, I am not involved so this is all I know, so please do not email me about this.

and finally.....
I hope to have caught up following the conference soon and will start to send out informative emails more regularly again soon, but as you can imagine, life has been very hectic recently.

Best wishes, Georgie

Georgie Oldfield MCSP
Physiotherapist & Founder of SIRPA
Purchase Chronic Pain: your key to recovery here
SIRPA Ltd, 19 Longley Lane, Huddersfield, HD4 6PS, United Kingdom +44 1484 452500

 

This webinar was really excellent.

Thanks TT for letting me know about it.

 

Your very welcome Ellen. I was not able to listen in unfortunately, if you would care to comment about any new insights from it that would be great--at your leisure, no hurry.

Cheers,
tt

 

I'm typing on my phone and didn't take notes, so I can't do a summary, but I wanted to share my favorite thing from the call!

As an example of the power of emotional expression, Dr. Schubiner told a story about being angry at his wife over something fairly small. He had just had a long hard day at work and she called on his way home to ask him to run three different errands on his way home. He said fine and hung up, but realizing he didn't feel fine about it, he went on an angry tirade in the privacy of his car. After cussing and ranting he immediately felt guilty because his wife does so much and didn't deserve his feelings of unfairness and anger. He felt compassion and gratitude for her in that moment, and ran the errands without the simmering anger and resentment that he would have if he hadn't ranted out loud to himself alone and gotten through the feelings. He shared another similar example about a man who was very angry at his daughter and broke down in guilty tears as soon as he heard himself saying to Dr. Schubiner, mid-rant, "I wish she had never been born." He immediately knew that wasn't true and began to weep, saying that he loved her deeply and should tell her more often, wishing he had been a more present parent. He went on to repair the relationship.

What I love about this is the way it emphasizes the importance of feeling our anger (and surely also grief, fear, etc) all the way through. Writing or saying it to ourselves so we can hear/see it. This very thing happened to me when I was journaling this morning. I admitted, much to my own shock, that I wished a particular person would just die. Immediately, there was guilt to work/write through. And after working through that, compassion for both my own hurt heart and the other person's. Where low simmering long-term anger had been keeping me in tension - constant vigilance, defensiveness, and low-grade anger in tension with guilt, compassion and the belief that I should be feeling more compassion, writing all the way through my anger laid things out in a way that I could deal with them one at a time. Pure white hot anger giving way to guilt giving way to compassion.

I liked that Dr. Schubiner sees value in guilt. He talked about it for a while. I heard a priest say once that guilt doesn't have to be a bad thing - it is often the feeling that reminds us we're human, capable of feeling such anger and also such compassion. It can be a helpful bridge if we use it right. Having seen the amazing, salutary work of both anger and guilt in my journaling today, I have to say I agree.

I'm grateful for the examples that so clearly showed the function of felt anger. Not necessarily expressed at the person (he said multiple times that almost no one deserves or needs to hear the pure expression of our anger at them), but privately felt and expressed in full. I thought I had felt my anger already - for years - but until I did some expressive writing about it with unchecked, raw emotion, I couldn't feel alllll the way through it. It's not gone, but its purpose is now visible, and it's not something I will be carrying around the same way. I didn't really understand what had happened in my journals today until I heard Dr. Schubiner talk about exactly that in this webinar. So I'm grateful for it!

 

Here are my notes from Dr. Schubiner's presentation on the webinar:

• Using new name for TMS/MBS of "neuropathway syndrome". The brain can turn on and turn off neuropathways.
• "Predictive coding" is another term for "conditioned response". The brain "expects" pain so generates it.
• An effective way to re-train the brain is through "top down processing". Using "higher brain" to override "primitive brain". This is done by consistently and persistently telling ourselves "Nothing is wrong. I'm OK." etc.
• Before 40 years old, the psychological issues that triggered TMS are often clear. After 40 years old, it can be more difficult to figure out, as the triggers can be subtle. The current issue can seem minor, but usually relates to something significant in the past.
• Reviewed the research study recently published that showed "emotional awareness and expression therapy" had significant impact on resolving fibromyalgia.
• Discussed upcoming research project to demonstrate effectiveness of TMS therapy using fMRI to show changes in the brain pre and post treatment.
• Discussed his use of ISTDP. Powerful emotions that are not processed can cause physical pain. ISTDP is effective and quick method for releasing these emotions from the body. We need to de-stigmatize having strong emotions like anger and encourage people to release these emotions in private (not in front of anyone). Fantasize about changing the script of past memories, allowing the strong emotions to come out. Many therapists are uncomfortable with this, as well as TMSers. Do it at your own level, maybe just telling the person to back off or push or shove them in your imagination.
• Schubiner has a new book coming out for practitioners called "Hidden From View" as well as upcoming training in Jan in LA, and May in Detroit.
• If taught anger is wrong, many people turn blame inward. As self-compassion develops, sadness is often first emotion to emerge before anger.
• When pains moves around, just laugh at it, which reduces fear. Like laughing at a bully.
• Yelling at the pain can be effective, but can become counterproductive over time. It can be a sign you are working too hard to get rid of the pain. Like fighting yourself, and can give it more power. Not good to yell at yourself.
• "Emotional granularity" is a term that relates to knowing what you feel.
• Common causes of TMS are (1) feeling trapped, (2) having too much to do, (3) the inner voice that says "what about me"
• For most people, it takes time to heal from TMS. Too high expectations and time pressure will make it take even longer. If self-compassion is hard for person, recovery will take longer. Trying too hard and self-criticism makes recovery take longer.
• For best results, relax and be patient.

 

Thanks to those who shared their notes! Did they mention on the webinar if/where a recording of the webinar would be posted?

 

Ellen
Thanks so much for posting these highlights. Have been out of any internet area (if you can imagine this) so missed this webinar. Found it interesting and hopeful as well.
Lainey

 

Hi Ellen,

Thank you so much for your notes! It's good to see that TMS professionals are working on providing the "scientific proof", that the opinion makers and the media require to verify, that repressed emotions can cause physical and affective TMS/psychosomatic symptoms. Doctors have always known this, and relegate the regulars in the waiting room with "medically" unexplainable chronic pain, to the "mental" or hypochondriac category--and now referring them to chiros, acus, or other "complementary" practitioners, which they would never have done a generation ago. Anyone of your bullet points would make for good TMS discussion.

Cheers,
tt

 

Awesome! This is a lot of what was covered in his course I took this past May, glad to hear some of the content is available for all.