• Alan has completed the new Pain Recovery Program. To read or share it, use this updated link: https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/painrecovery/
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Forest

Forest

Beloved Grand Eagle
Hi everyone,

A group of TMS Therapists from the Pain Psychology Center (PPC) in Los Angeles has offered to volunteer their time to answer questions on our forum for free. If you've ever wanted to ask a question directly to a licensed TMS therapist, now is the time!

Via our "Ask a TMS Therapist" program, your question will be assigned to one of four PPC therapists. Their response, along with your original question, will then be posted publicly in the Ask a TMS Therapist subforum.

Anyone can submit a question by filling out the Ask a TMS Therapist form:
http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/forms/ask-a-tms-therapist.1/respond (Ask A Question | TMS Forum (The Mindbody Syndrome))

The more questions we have the better this resource will be, so please submit your questions! In fact, if you see anyone else who needs help, please encourage them to submit their questions as well.

Incidentally, the PPC therapists generally use the approach in the TMS Recovery Program donated to our nonprofit by Alan Gordon. I highly recommend both the program itself and the community resources that we have constructed around it for anyone who would like to learn more.

Update:
The Therapists:

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Alan Gordon, LCSW

Bio: My passion for understanding chronic pain started 12 years ago with the onset of my own psychogenic symptoms, and continues today as an educator and therapist around the subject. I have authored several publications on the treatment of chronic pain, and have presented on the topic at conferences and held trainings throughout the country. I am a professor at USC, and a practicing psychotherapist and Executive Director of the Pain Psychology Center.


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Derek Sapico, MFT

Bio: My career has been largely focused on working with chronic pain patients in a psychological capacity. For 5 years I specialized in treating headaches as the lead therapist at the California Headache and Pain Center. I have since presented on the topic of pain at universities throughout California and served as the Clinical Placement Coordinator for the USC MFT Program. I am currently an active board member of the Psychophysiologic Disorders Association (PPDA). In 2014 I helped found the Pain Psychology Center and continue to help people that suffer from chronic pain as a psychotherapist in our Los Angeles office and worldwide via Skype.


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Alex Bloom, MSW

Bio: Acutely recognizing the connection between mind, body and emotions, I strive to empower my patients so that they can understand and ultimately overcome the underlying causes of their physical distress. My approach to therapy uses a variety of techniques, with focus on a psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral model. I practice psychotherapy in Los Angeles and via Skype at the Pain Psychology Center.

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Amber Murphy, MSW

Bio: I like to use a highly integrated approach to treat chronic pain sufferers, combining psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral and trauma informed approaches while leveraging the practice of mindfulness to assist patients in overcoming their pain. Having recovered from psychogenic pain myself, I have a unique insight into the mind-body connection and understands the fear and frustration that often accompanies it. I practice in Los Angeles, CA and worldwide via Skype with the Pain Psychology Center.


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Daniel Lyman, MSW

Bio: I specialize in the treatment of complex body and mind dynamics and their relation to chronic pain from a neuroscience perspective. With a background in working with LGBT couples and individuals, my approach is inclusive and sensitive to the individual. I earned both a master’s degree in Social Work and in Public Administration from the University of Southern California and practice via Skype worldwide, and in person in the Los Angeles area with the Pain Psychology Center.

If you'd like to read some of the best Ask A TMS Therapist posts, here are a couple of the answers that have been "most liked" by our members:
 
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Forest, this is really exciting news! A question - Will questions be posted with out the user's name? I know we talk about a lot of stuff here but I was thinking sometimes folks may not want their question attributed to themselves. (I have a few I'd love to ask but hesitate due to the personal nature.)

Many, many thanks to you for continuing to grow and nurture this site.
 
Heya, Northstar, thanks for your kind words. :) It's wonderful people like you who make it worth building.:D

Regarding privacy, we absolutely want people to be able to have whatever level of privacy they desire. If people don't want to be referred to by their usernames in the response, that is 100% fine. Regarding the details, I'll have to get in touch with Alan to see if what sort of system they want to use for giving people temporary pseudonyms. However, in the meantime, I can personally guarantee that if anyone submits a question and says, "Don't mention my username in the answer," their request will be honored.

When someone submits a question via the link above, the question is sent to a special hidden subforum so that only the therapists and forum administrators can see it. To ask a question completely anonymously, people can just log out of their forum account before submitting the question. This way, absolutely no one will know who posted the question. The downside of this is that we have no way of getting in touch with the asker if we need to ask a follow up question. My gut says that needing to do this (even if for merely administrative reasons) will be much more common than we expect.

A second, preferred, 100% anonymous way of submitting a question is to make an account at a free email service like Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo Mail. Then you can email the question to
askatmstherapist@tmswiki.org . It only takes a minute or two to set up a new account like this. If people use this method, I strongly encourage them to make a habit of going back and checking the email address in case we have attempted to get in touch with you.

Of course, while we do offer two 100% anonymous ways of submitting questions, the if people feel comfortable, the simplest thing is just to use the regular web form when logged in or to email the question from your regular account. That way we can get in touch if we need to and if you don't want us to mention your name or username, you (i.e. whoever is reading this) can just mention it when you submit the question.

How does that sound?
 
That sounds absolutely brilliant, Forest! A very safe, non-threatening way to get some help and encouragement. I know for me, this TMS journey is fraught with topics/issues that are painful and difficult to address…especially when they first show up on your radar. I don't know about others but I tend to have to process a lot of things before I feel okay enough to get it all out on the table. I don't think this is the most effective way to deal with stuff and see the value that a therapist can bring to the process in bringing that outside perspective.

So once again, from the bottom of my widdle heart…I lift my Picon Punch in a toast to you…and say THANK YOU!
 
Forest,

Yet another brilliant way to help people through the tmswiki!

Thank you so much for all you do to support people with TMS. And thanks to the therapists at the PPC for their willingness to do this. I will be submitting a question soon.
 
Thank you both so much for your support. Like I said, the more questions we have, the better the resource will be. :D
 
Forest, I have 'submitted' my question on here about two or three times. Is it too much of a stupid question to ask whether it should show up anywhere, and if so, where? Does it have to be 'approved' by anyone to be posted on the forum??
 
Heya, NIClubber, that's a great question and something worth clarifying. Your questions have been successfully received and are waiting for a therapist to answer them. The way that it works is that questions submitted to the Ask A TMS Therapist program aren't posted publicly until they are answered by a therapist. Because the therapists are volunteering and to keep administrative burden to a minimum, new answered questions appear in the General Discussion subforum on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays at roughly 8:00 AM. This provides a regular schedule for the therapists, staff, and forum participants. I hope this helps!
 
I wish we could make guarantees like that, but unfortunately the volunteer therapists aren't able to donate enough time to provide that sort of speed. I would suggest that you think of this like an advice column in a newspaper. It's a free service that supports our forum and is meant to help people and stimulate discussion. I've been thrilled with the quality of answers that the therapists have provided.

You mentioned that you had an appointment with Georgie Oldfield in another thread. She should be able to help.
 
The best way to get a sense of the average waiting time is to look at existing posts to see how long it took for them to be answered. The first time in grey at the bottom of the first post is when the question was asked and the time in grey at the bottom of the bottom post is when it was answered. The difference between those two times tells you how much time passed between when the question was submitted and when it was answered. Just look at a bunch of questions that were answered recently and you'll get a sense of how long it takes.
 
I asked a question a few days ago. Do some questions go unanswered? In that case, I won't get my hopes up as much...
 
Hi Eric,

Yes, more questions are submitted than we have resources to answer. New answered questions appear in the General Discussion Subforum on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays at 8:00 AM.
 
Dear Alan Gordon,
I would like to thank you for your Recovery Program...By reading and listening to your sessions I could find myself in them..Listening to sessions was like opening the inner doors to the emotions I did not really know they were there. I will follow the daily program. So glad, I have finally found the path.In our country(Slovenia), we do not have people who would treat TMS. I am reading dr Sarno s books as well. So many treatments I went through, all sorts of medical examinations, and I am fine., but the pain always came back...before my pain has started I was so active, always healthy. And then came the pain...Thank you again, Sasa
 
Is this forum still active? I submitted a question a month or more ago and have not gotten a reply. There doesn't seem to be much recent activity.
 
nature girl said:
Is this forum still active? I submitted a question a month or more ago and have not gotten a reply. There doesn't seem to be much recent activity.
Click to expand...
Hmm, yes I’ve noticed that there hasn’t been any therapists here in a very long time.
 
In response to a recent post asking if the therapists are still answering questions, Alan has answered some lately, but it's kind of sporadic. I'm guessing that the therapists are overwhelmed with an epidemic of mindbody disorders, and/or a growing demand for the professionals who can address them!

I encourage everyone to post your questions in the public forum, because many questions are submitted to the therapists, but only a few are chosen to be answered. Forum members don't see these questions, but other members are an excellent resource for help and support.

I'm going to lock this thread and hope that people will go to the main forum.
 
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The "Ask a TMS Therapist" feature is inactive. There have not been any therapist responses since well before 2020, and even then they were very few.

You can post your questions in the Support subforum for community members to answer. Shorter is better. Fewer physical details is better, since the forum is comprised of non-medical peers. A good title is essential to attract responses.

We do need to know that you've been medically checked out and either "they can't find anything wrong" or you have been given some kind of diagnosis, but that treatment options either don't exist or else they are not very helpful, or they have low success with high risk (eg surgeries).

It is also really helpful for us to know how much knowledge you have about Dr John Sarno MD and his theory of chronic suffering that he called TMS, and/or if you have previously engaged in psychotherapy or any other emotional or mental health treatments or programs (such as Alan Gordon's PRT, the Curable app, Dr Schubiner's workbook, etc), as our answers will be quite different for different levels of knowledge!

If you are completely new to this: Before you ask your question, make sure that you have reviewed the basic information from the main wiki at tmswiki.org, and that you've read at least one of Dr. John Sarno's books, and that you've viewed the video in Day 1 of the Structured Educational Program (which is on the wiki, there is no sign-up required to do the program).
 
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