Your thoughts on deep emotional work and its' importance to recovery.

[Cap'n Spanky]

Would love to hear your thoughts on deep emotional work and its' importance to recovery. 1) It's necessary, 2) It's not necessary, but a best practice, or 3) There's too much emphasis on it.

The obvious answer, of course, is "it depends". The topic is probably a little controversial. There's a variety of opinions out there and our own experiences may color our feelings.

Regardless, I'd truly want to hear your thoughts and experiences.

It's pretty well accepted that we need to learn to 'feel our feelings' in order to recover. But should we go deeper?

What I mean by deep emotional work could be any number of things. For example, expressive writing (like JournalSpeak), Emotional Awareness Expression Therapy, and other kinds of therapy would fall in this category. Even sitting quietly and experiencing our emotions at a deep level would count.

 

[Cactusflower]

I think it is essential, although the methods and needs for individuals will vary.
Many return customers to this forum, once questioned, have never really done the deep work. They recognized fear and anxiety as purely related to symptoms and are surprised to find themselves returning to high stress levels without understanding why.
I began by journaling, but a therapist suggested I stop. Just as an experiment, and that’s when we realized my brain interpreted journaling as “something is wrong with me”. I will journal if I feel I need it, but after doing so much inner work I can now suss out what’s going on with symptoms pretty quickly. For myself doing deep psychological work also means nervous system practices as a balance.

 

[feduccini]

I’d go with 1, but I also think it gets too much emphasis and make TMSers look for the a-ha emotional moment, discrediting the progress they make on those boring and painful recovery days that make you wrongly feel you’re stuck.

For me recovery has a lot to do with the power of going forward and visualizing the future you deserve.

 

[Diana-M]

For me recovery has a lot to do with the power of going forward and visualizing the future you deserve.

Wow, I like this!

I think it is essential, although the methods and needs for individuals will vary.

I agree here. I think you have to know yourself to get rid of TMS and knowing yourself requires emotional work.

 

[Baseball65]

learn to 'feel our feelings'

I don't know about that. I just know that I need a better explanation...an explanation from Myself to Me.

In fact the fact that I get relapses probably means , I do the least I need to to get out of pain. That's why we might call it a teacher. Whenever we think we might be done it goes..."Ahh ahh ahh...You forgot about THIS!"

I keep looking and guessing and trying it out, and when it works, I usually find a new way to fall back asleep.

A Shrink Phd I was seeing for anger once said I was his most motivated patient...as Plum and JanA have discussed "Where the F else am I gonna go?"...once you know why you have this, your kind of screwed. You can never 'go back'.

 

[HealingMe]

Yeah, I am leaning toward 1.

Personally, for me, I have to do deeper emotional work a few times a week. I rotate between EFT, sitting quietly with my eyes closed and letting the feelings come, or writing shit down like @JanAtheCPA says. Today I did something different and recorded myself on my phone. That was kind of fun and new.

I’ve too noticed people returning to the forum needing to do deeper work so that speaks for itself *shrug*

 

[Cap'n Spanky]

Many return customers to this forum, once questioned, have never really done the deep work. They recognized fear and anxiety as purely related to symptoms and are surprised to find themselves returning to high stress levels without understanding why.

I've also noticed this phenomenon with many of those who struggle, as well. When you start asking questions about what steps they're taking to recover, you get nothing in the way of emotional work. It's natural for most people to resist "feeling our feelings". But it's been hypothesized that TMS-ers take it further and have a form of Alexithymia, which is used to describe people who struggle with feeling and expressing emotions. It's a reduced ability to be connected with the internal emotive signals your body sends you. I can't say whether that's true, but it's certainly interesting.

I began by journaling, but a therapist suggested I stop. Just as an experiment, and that’s when we realized my brain interpreted journaling as “something is wrong with me”. I will journal if I feel I need it, but after doing so much inner work I can now suss out what’s going on with symptoms pretty quickly. For myself doing deep psychological work also means nervous system practices as a balance.

Yes, yes! Doing deep emotional work can get overwhelming and it's critical to keep certain ideas in mind. Concepts like self-compassion and internalizing things like, "I am not broken. There's nothing to fix. My body isn't broken and my brain isn't broken" and so on.

 

[Diana-M]

But it's been hypothesized that TMS-ers take it further and have a form of Alexithymia, which is used to describe people who struggle with feeling and expressing emotions. It's a reduced ability to be connected with the internal emotive signals your body sends you. I can't say whether that's true, but it's certainly interesting.

I think this is true.

 

[Cap'n Spanky]

I’d go with 1, but I also think it gets too much emphasis and make TMSers look for the a-ha emotional moment, discrediting the progress they make on those boring and painful recovery days that make you wrongly feel you’re stuck.

Yeah. There seems to be a misconception that there's some magical hidden trauma or piece of emotional baggage, that once uncovered, will be the key to recovery. I suspect that may partly come from Dr. Sarno's dramatic story about the woman who suddenly recovered after remembering she was sexually abused. My opinion is emotional work is part of the process needed to change our neural pathways. Including, but not limited to, learning it's safe to experience our emotions.

For me recovery has a lot to do with the power of going forward and visualizing the future you deserve.

Agree. There's a time for reflection and a time to live our lives.

 

[Cap'n Spanky]

I think this is true.

Yeah, it makes sense to me too, @Diana-M. Both of these TMS dudes have videos on Alexithymia:

https://www.youtube.com/@thepainpt
https://www.youtube.com/@painpsychotherapy

 

[Diana-M]

Yeah, it makes sense to me too, @Diana-M. Both of these TMS dudes have videos on Alexithymia:

https://www.youtube.com/@thepainpt
https://www.youtube.com/@painpsychotherapy

Thanks! This has been a real challenge for me. I actually couldn’t feel emotions in my body, especially anger.

 

[feduccini]

Yeah. There seems to be a misconception that there's some magical hidden trauma or piece of emotional baggage, that once uncovered, will be the key to recovery. I suspect that may partly come from Dr. Sarno's dramatic story about the woman who suddenly recovered after remembering she was sexually abused. My opinion is emotional work is part of the process needed to change our neural pathways. Including, but not limited to, learning it's safe to experience our emotions.

Also the Boulder Back Pain Study that is referenced a lot, although bringing amazing and important findings, is usually explained as an study where 66% of the patients recovered in one month. I don't know what is meant by "recovered", but I remember reading The Way Out and thinking I could be pain free in 30 days or so...
which always reminds me about Lorimer Moseley's recent findings that there clearly is a teaching problem in TMS recover.

Maybe one of the problems is that finding the traumas is one part of the emotional equation. The other one is knowing yourself, which goes well beyond than "personality traits". I love journaling, but I'm pretty sure the broad strokes of my traumas were already found, and it's up to the neuroplasticity work now that's made of confidence in the treatment, self-knowledge, emotional release, physical training, TMS literature etc.

But who knows, maybe there is a dramatically faster approach waiting to be discovered out there...

 

[Diana-M]

Yeah. There seems to be a misconception that there's some magical hidden trauma or piece of emotional baggage, that once uncovered, will be the key to recovery.

Yeah. I actually thought that. I already knew all of my childhood traumas from earlier therapy —before I knew about Sarno. But I thought maybe there was some missing piece. So, I spent 3 more years recently in therapy, thinking it would be the magic pill. It wasn’t.

 

[HealingMe]

Yeah. I actually thought that. I already knew all of my childhood traumas from earlier therapy —before I knew about Sarno. But I thought maybe there was some missing piece. So, I spent 3 more years recently in therapy, thinking it would be the magic pill. It wasn’t.

This is so true, and I thought the same thing. I was beginning to get frustrated when I couldn't figure it out. Was putting so much pressure on myself. Finally I gave up on it and that's when things began to slowly fall into place.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

Re: Your thoughts on deep emotional work and its' importance to recovery

All I've done here is collect the "gems" that caught my eye in this terrific discussion and thanks to Tim for posing the question!

I think it is essential, although the methods and needs for individuals will vary.

I’d go with 1, but I also think it gets too much emphasis and make TMSers look for the a-ha emotional moment, discrediting the progress they make on those boring and painful recovery days that make you wrongly feel you’re stuck.

I think you have to know yourself to get rid of TMS and knowing yourself requires emotional work.

There seems to be a misconception that there's some magical hidden trauma or piece of emotional baggage, that once uncovered, will be the key to recovery.

Maybe one of the problems is that finding the traumas is one part of the emotional equation. The other one is knowing yourself, which goes well beyond than "personality traits"

Was putting so much pressure on myself. Finally I gave up on it and that's when things began to slowly fall into place.

My opinion is emotional work is part of the process needed to change our neural pathways. Including, but not limited to, learning it's safe to experience our emotions

So far the concensus seems to be that it's not black and white (it never is!), it takes a combination of approaches, and it's always going to be unique for each individual.

I'm interested to hear more opinions!

 

[Cap'n Spanky]

Also the Boulder Back Pain Study that is referenced a lot, although bringing amazing and important findings, is usually explained as an study where 66% of the patients recovered in one month. I don't know what is meant by "recovered", but I remember reading The Way Out and thinking I could be pain free in 30 days or so...

I hadn't thought about that. But I suppose that could cause unrealistic expectations. I took me about 5 months to fully recover from my back pain.

which always reminds me about Lorimer Moseley's recent findings that there clearly is a teaching problem in TMS recover.

I'm very curious about this. I'm gonna look into it

 

[Cap'n Spanky]

Yeah. I actually thought that. I already knew all of my childhood traumas from earlier therapy —before I knew about Sarno. But I thought maybe there was some missing piece. So, I spent 3 more years recently in therapy, thinking it would be the magic pill. It wasn’t.

This is so true, and I thought the same thing. I was beginning to get frustrated when I couldn't figure it out. Was putting so much pressure on myself. Finally I gave up on it and that's when things began to slowly fall into place.

It's completely understandable why you might think that. It's a logical train of thought. And whose to say that in some cases there is an ah-ha moment that makes things fall in place (like the aforementioned Dr. Sarno story).

 

[Sita]

Meditation helped me in the past. And it's helping me every day.

Also sitting quietly in deep silence daily. This means working on my hobbies (knitting, gardening etc) in silence, eating in silence, keeping the mind at peace in a form of deep silence while I'm functioning in the world. For example while I'm cooking or even interacting with people. Or being outside in nature. I keep a certain chamber/room in my mind that is always (I aim for always) at peace and serene, undisturbed. Like a garden with wonderful flowers in it. I don't really know how to explain this...it might sound weird.

All these tools (and others) are helping me to calm down my nervous system. And then I'm more natural in living life, expressing emotions and so on. It comes naturally.

 

[HealingMe]

Meditation helped me in the past. And it's helping me every day.

Also sitting quietly in deep silence daily. This means working on my hobbies (knitting, gardening etc) in silence, eating in silence, keeping the mind at peace in a form of deep silence while I'm functioning in the world. For example while I'm cooking or even interacting with people. Or being outside in nature. I keep a certain chamber/room in my mind that is always (I aim for always) at peace and serene, undisturbed. Like a garden with wonderful flowers in it. I don't really know how to explain this...it might sound weird.

All these tools (and others) are helping me to calm down my nervous system. And then I'm more natural in living life, expressing emotions and so on. It comes naturally.

This sounds so serene and wonderful.

 

[Diana-M]

Also sitting quietly in deep silence daily.

keeping the mind at peace in a form of deep silence while I'm functioning in the world.

. I keep a certain chamber/room in my mind that is always (I aim for always) at peace and serene, undisturbed

Sita! This is beautiful! I feel peaceful just thinking about it. Thank you so much for this beautiful example of living; I’m going to try to live by it too.. you are an inspiration!