TMS & Beth Rodden's Climbing Comeback?

[BruceMC]

I just ran across this YouTube video yesterday and couldn't help but speculate about the role of TMS in the onset of Beth Rodden's torn labrum and subsequent series of painful shoulder operations:

You'll notice that Beth mentions about half-way through that she started getting injured at approximately the same time she went through a separation and divorce from her husband. Could it have been that the stress of the divorce caused her autonomic nervous system to reduce the oxygen flow to her extremities in a similar fashion to the freeze portion of the fight/flight/freeze mammalian response to imminent danger? Makes you wonder whether stress is a factor predisposing one to injury? You'll notice that Beth says that during her breakup she tried to push herself harder climbing as an escape from her personal problems. Self-imposed stress?

You notice at the end of the video that Beth has returned to the pursuit of climbing as something affirmative and positive. Makes you wonder too whether that change in her mental attitude is part of what's contributing to her healing? I'd like to conclude from this that TMS is part of a larger process that is always operative in homo sapiens although it doesn't always result in chronic pain. But the oxygen debt that results from being too stressed out could be a factor that underlies lots of athletic injuries.

 

[BruceMC]

I'd like to conclude from this that TMS is part of a larger process that is always operative in homo sapiens although it doesn't always result in chronic pain. But the oxygen debt that results from being too stressed out could be a factor that underlies lots of athletic injuries.

I just happened to notice this quote from Dr. Sarno on page 47 of Healing Back Pain (1991) at the end of a section entitled Repression:

"This virtual epidemic of pain syndromes [which Sarno notes involve around a $56 billion expenditure annually in the US] can only be properly explained on the basis of a universal psychophysiological process".

It seems as though Beth going out and cranking real hard on climbs to escape her emotions during her separation and subsequent divorce may have led to her repetitive shoulder injuries when the oxygen supply to her extremities was reduced due to a process similar to TMS. As Dr Sarno implies, it seems as though this process is universal to our culture, just the way we habitually process stress by repressing our emotions.