Success Story Presentation & Feedback (Thurs May 16th)

[Forest]

This weekend my girlfriend and I are heading down to New York. It's been a long time since we've been able to go on a vacation, and I'm particularly excited, because I will be presenting my story at the training program, When Stress Causes Pain - A Master Class in the Diagnosis And Treatment of Psychophysiologic Disorders! I am part of a fantastic training staff, with TMS practitioners Frances Sommer Anderson, PhD, SEP, Neal Kathleen May, PsyD, Ira Rashbaum, MD, Eric Sherman, PsyD, and Jeffrey Wentzel, PhD. I’ll be talking about the relapses I’ve had, and how I’ve used “thinking psychologically” to overcome them. I would really love to get feedback on this presentation before Sunday, so I’ll be presenting what I have prepared in the form of a mini-webinar this Thursday, May 16th, at 9pm ET. If you’re free, I’d really love getting your feedback. The presentation itself will be about 35 minutes, and then we’ll all talk. This is also a great opportunity for people to connect with each other.

Connection details are as follows:

To connect via your computer (Fuze Meeting), go to http://fuze.me/19872250 and follow the instructions from there.​

To connect using your phone, dial 1 646 583 7415 and when prompted enter the pin code 21558901.​

As I will be using my webcam, I suggest connecting via your computer so you can see me while I’m talking.

Visit go.tmswiki.org/connect for more detailed information on how to connect, as well as instructions on how to install Fuze Meeting on your computer.

Hope to see you there,
Forest

 

[gailnyc]

Wow, this sounds really cool! Who will you be training, may I ask?

 

[Forest]

Yeah, I'm really excited about it, too. The audience will be psychotherapists, primarily psychoanalysts who went to the Fall 2012 TMS conference in New York entitled "When Stress Causes Pain." These are people who presumably have already established themselves as psychotherapists, and want to learn more about the mind-body connection and how they can integrate it into their practice.

In the long term, the goal is to make sure that everyone with TMS gets the treatment that they deserve. Because of their scientific training, practitioners bring important legitimacy to our movement, helping us to achieve our goals much more quickly. The goal of the conferences and trainings is to help with this.

The event was marketed primarily through the emails that we collected at the Fall 2012 conference, so most of the attendees will have seen that. The video for presentations from that conference by Howard Schubiner, Eric Sherman, Alan Gordon, and myself are available in this thread:
http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/tms-conference-presentations.1174/

Do you think that you might be able to make it on Thursday? I'm hoping for a nice chat afterward.

 

[PeterO]

Hi Forest.

Just wishing you luck with your 'vacation' & presentation.

Almost a TMS Psychotherapy All-Star line-up.

Would love to be attending with you but a stretch
from Australia. I am often impressed by your TMS
advice provided on this Wiki. A considered, wise
& well qualified approach. No doubt you will be
a worthy contributor to the training program.

For anyone else interested in TMS psychotherapy, I
have just read a remarkable book 'Theaters of the Body:
A Psychoanalytic Approach to Psychosomatic Illness'
(1982) by psychoanalyst Joyce McDougall.

Well worth a look.

Travel well good man!

Pete

 

[Forest]

Hi Forest.

Just wishing you luck with your 'vacation' & presentation.

Almost a TMS Psychotherapy All-Star line-up.

Would love to be attending with you but a stretch
from Australia. I am often impressed by your TMS
advice provided on this Wiki. A considered, wise
& well qualified approach. No doubt you will be
a worthy contributor to the training program.

For anyone else interested in TMS psychotherapy, I
have just read a remarkable book 'Theaters of the Body:
A Psychoanalytic Approach to Psychosomatic Illness'
(1982) by psychoanalyst Joyce McDougall.

Well worth a look.

Travel well good man!

Pete

Thanks, Pete, I really appreciate your kind words. It's interesting that you mention Theaters of the Body. It's on the reading list for Saturday's training. I've got it but haven't had a chance to read it yet, as there is only so much time in the day! I'm glad to hear that you liked it, though. I'd be very interested to hear what you got from it. Did it help you understand your own TMS?

The author of Theaters of the Body, Joyce McDougall, was actually an important influence on Dr. Fran Anderson. For the benefit of others I'll mention that I believe that Dr. Anderson is the psychoanalyst who has worked with Dr. Sarno for the longest time and is also one of the authors of Pathways to Pain Relief. Anyway, Dr. McDougall was actually a mentor of Dr. Anderson's. If I remember correctly, she was one of the first people to encourage Dr. Anderson to put her experiences of being a psychotherapist down on paper and gave Dr. Anderson her first computer so that she could do so! In at least one of the stories in Pathways to Pain Relief, Dr. Anderson speaks of being compelled to put put the story to paper, so I suspect that the act of writing and sharing a story has importance to her. I think she also feels great respect for and gratitude toward Dr. McDougall. She sent me the following link to an obituary of Dr. McDougall:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/oct/24/joyce-mcdougall-obituary?newsfeed=true

I'd be very interested to read your take on the book, as I'm a painfully slow reader and I'm always interested to hear what others think.

 

[gailnyc]

I had hoped to be able to make it tonight but I had an exhausting day and I'm fading fast. I hope it goes well, and I hope your weekend goes well.

 

[Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)]

Hi, Forest. I watched and heard you but couldn't figure out how to talk to you.
No problem because others asked and said good stuff.

I have the same hangups you have... I tend to "catastophize" and think the worst will happen.
And I have anxiety about the worst going to happen.

I think with me both are related to financial matters.
I've been a freelance writer for 40 years and am still at it, but the market for selling
magazine articles and getting new books published is near to impossible.
I work for a publisher friend but so far we haven't gotten an investor interested in our projects,
so money is scarce. But I know most people have money worries so I'm in a very large boat.

I had loving parents but my father never really showed it, and often put me down in front of
his friends. I never knew why. His younger brother said my dad really loved me and my]
sister and brother. Maybe he couldn't show it to my older brother and me, but he did show
love to our sister.

I've been finding I can put my childhood grievances to rest when I try to put myself in
my parents' shoes. It was during the 1930s Great Depression and they worked hard just to
keep the family going, so they probably had a lot of TMS. Mom had migraines and a few times
she said she was going to commit suicide, but never tried, thank heaven. Dad had back pain
he called "lumbago" which I looked up on the internet and it means lumbar lower back pain.

I have that, but what the hey, next month I'll be 80. I've been healthy all my life so what
do I have to complain about? I read that even people in their twenties have lower back pain,
and half the tv commercials I see are for drugs or back support or other gadgets to relieve
lower back pain. I'll keep telling my subconscious it's from repressed emotion (now I believe
that's mainly financial worries) and thank the Lord that's all the pain I feel.

I heard Eric Watson (Herbie) at the close of your talk tonight. He's been a great help and
friend.

You're doing a great job helping people with TMS and that should boost your self-esteem.

Maybe we and everyone else ought to keep in mind what I try to...
my dog loves me and doesn't judge me. Annie thinks I'm the greatest.
So too did my two dogs before her.
God gave loving parents, sister, and brother, some great friends, and fantastic dogs.
I thank Him all the time for the blessings.

Right now I'm also trying to get a big boost of faith in the Lord.
I feel at peace with Him, and trust more in Him in all things.

Good luck with your doctorate studies. Stick with them. Get the degree.
I only have a bachelor's degree, in journalism, and book publishers
are easier to get with a master's and even more so with a doctorate.
And you get to teach higher levels with a doctorate.
But keep in mind, even if you just teach grammar school kids and
make an impression on them, it's worth it. Some of the teachers I had
that had the biggest influence on me were grammar school teachers.

Time to sign off and go to dreamland.

Walt

 

[Leslie]

I hope you have a wonderful weekend Forest, I have complete faith that you will do well with your presentation. I'm wondering, is there any chance this weekends presentations will be recorded and put on the wiki? I've really enjoyed those from the conference in October so I'm hoping for sequels!