David Hanscom MD

I help people for money in order to survive because I don't have an income, and was doing so long before the Wiki came into being. But I give away many more thousands of hours of free advice because I enjoy seeing people heal. At some point it's necessary to eat food, so I ask for help from people who can afford it. However, it also must be noted that there's no such thing as a TMS degree, or TMS certification (yet). And as Dr. Sarno said, "You can go to the best psychotherapist in the world and it won't do any good unless they understand what's happening between mind and body." I see this weekly, people who have been to professional therapists to no avail. They then come to understand TMS deeper and voila, they heal. So the great doctor was right once again.

That was one reason I was interested in reading this thread. I saw Dr. Hanscom say that mindbody back pain was a neurological disorder, and that people with scar tissue have more trouble healing, and that "writing is the only way out," and that he sometimes sends them to physical therapy, and that the pain will return. I've never seen any of that to be accurate. All of these notions take Dr. Sarno's work backwards into the physical arena again. I work closely with several of the doctors and therapists Dr. Sarno trained, and none of them have seen these things either. But Dr. Hanscom has an MD after his name, so people listen closely. The great irony is that Forest and I had a similar conversation the very first time we spoke.

"Degree" does not necessarily equal understanding, but it might. The thing that matters is the degree of understanding TMS. Dr. Sarno is not happy that his work is being confused and "borrowed" in such ways. But it's the way we live, especially here in the US. Credentialed people are believed more readily. But in my life, paradoxically, the credentialed ones destroyed my health, several times over.

In my work, I mirror people's lives to show them how they are reacting, with their own words and actions. I also teach them about true TMS. Almost all of them have healed nicely (with the exception of 2 people, but I will stay with them until they do). But we rarely hear of all the successes. A guy emailed me to thank me for helping him heal. I asked him which of my books helped him and he said, "You wrote a book?" He had no idea. People are healing from hearing an interview I did here at unt Viki, and through online articles, lectures, and YouTube videos. They are healing and asking questions at such high rates that I can no longer keep up. I struggle to keep up with the demands of suffering people out there because the medical industry has messed them up so badly, but I still try. The best way for me to help is to keep writing.

There are other avenues for sufferers to gain understanding, and also a few people here that give out great advice, Fred Amir, Forest, Ellen, Walt, Herbie, Andy B, Anne, Alan, and a few others. I apologize I can't recall other names of the top but there are a few others. If the quest is to heal, the information can be had. But be careful of what and who you choose to believe. Don't fall for what you want to hear. It's what you don't want to know that is causing your symptoms. Don't immediately attach your sail to someone who tells you what pleases you. When someone gets pissed off I know I'm getting somewhere, and they always fare better because the anger lid is now opening. It is more important to seek someone you feel comfortable with, and can open up to and develop a good/trust relationship.

Even though none of the TMS books out there make a profit (or very small) it is still rewarding to help people feel better. So in the only way I am able (since I'm just a dumb laymen), I keep pushing the true message. My goal is to pass this gift forward as fast as I can, for as long as I can. The most difficult obstruction in the process is always the professionals, and even worse, those who call themselves mindbody practitioners. I recently had 2 accounts deleted in pain forums in England because I had the audacity to show that people could heal, by showing them some success stories. Success stories are rarely welcomed with open arms by any groups for varying reasons.

The list of people who have tried ISTDP and have failed grows, as does the list of people trying to journal into wellness. But! This, I believe is due to readiness. If you're ready to heal and you start to journal, then you heal. If you are ready to heal, and you try ISTDP, then you heal. If you are ready to heal, and you read my books, then you heal. Your time will come when you are ready. So relax, be patient and keep open your heart and mind. I threw Dr. Sarno's book because I wasn't ready. I returned to it when I was ready, and healed. The key is to prepare the way for this to occur. We get TMS because of the thoughts and actions we have taken to get us here. The very cause of which we ourselves have laid up and are now reaping the effects. It's a matrix phenomenon.

Journaling might bring great relief, and I remember talking to Dr. Sarno about it, it seemed to take him awhile to get fully on board. But he could not deny that it was helping some people. But it's all paradoxical by nature. The same is true for ISTDP. But the danger is in telling people that they "have" to do this, and "have" to do that. Or that things like scar tissue causes healing problems, because once the person is told these things it happens. They believe what they are told for good or bad and their body then adapts to match their deeper held beliefs. The mind has all the power to heal. Belief is the only problem, driven by need.

I'm still learning after 16 years of doing TMS work full time. As soon as someone claims to know it all they have stopped their learning. Emotional pain is held in different ways in people, and is only released under certain circumstances, and in the correct time. The biggest qualification that I have is that I am human too, with the same worries and frustrations, and questions. I talk to people as if it were me listening, talking about myself, to myself. We are all the same, differentiated only by experience and in the way we have learned to hide our shame. Dr. Sarno's work is axiomatic, however.

I'm not Frasure Crane, but I am listening and I do drink sherry.

SteveO

 

Look like someone came out of hiding... Good to see you back buddy.

Ryan

 

Enough with the Trump vs. Clinton talk... Steve Ozanich for Surgeon General! Somebody make that happen!!!

 

In reading this thread, I can only say, based on my own experience, you should never underestimate your doctor's capacity to completely miss something PHYSICAL in your diagnosis. Although, I recognize all my issues as mind/body, I had a pretty obvious physical disorder that was causing a great deal of my back pain for the better part of 15 years. During that time, every doctor, and there were a lot, including Endocrinologists, did not know how to correctly read my blood tests and completely missed the fact that I had a parathyroid adenoma that needed surgical removal. This was causing calcium to leach out of my bones and into my bloodstream where it caused all sorts of problems including back pain. This disorder has 21 symptoms associated with it and 16 of them (most of them) are mental/emotional effects. This is a physical disorder that will turn you into a hypochondriac because your mind/body knows something is really wrong. I would not have recovered unless this physical issue was addressed.

It sometimes seems to me that, whereas some are trying to make the mind/body equation all physical, there are so many radical TMS'ers (of the everything is TMS variety) trying to make it all mental and emotional. Mind/body simply means that the mind and body are not separate and do not operate independent of each other.

 

Though it seems that there is an attempt to clarify the treatment of tms this thread, however it seems to have completely confused me. I have been doing journalling as a part of structured education program with no pain reduction and now I am in week number five point at the same time, I have stop focusing on pain reduction as much as I can believing in the outcome Independence theory. But from what I from the discussion about, it seems that journalling is not of much use. But at the same time I don't know what else to do. Am I just supposed to bear the pain and talk to the mind.

 

But do you understand what outcome independence really means? And do you realize that understanding it intellectually is not good enough? Your entire mind/body must believe it. It really boils down to ridding yourself of your fear that is the main driver of your pain. It has been proven over and over again that pain is highly subjective, whether the pain is caused by primarily physical or emotional factors and it is often a combination of both. You don't need to agonize over what causes your pain - your mind/body knows the cause and it will resolve over time. Just don't use your mind to obsess about it and make it worse.

 

Dr. Hanscom should be commended for his work, and for his courage in stepping up against the industry and trying to help. He could easily have kept this info to himself, once he healed. He put himself out there for all the ridicule that the rest of us run into. I hope I didn't give the wrong impression that he was always wrong, he isn't. He has recently said some very important and truthful things that may get him into trouble when the powers to be hear of them. But this thread was in response to the differences between Drs. Sarno and Hanscom, in practice. There are several important distinctions between the two, some I mentioned above.

In another interview Dr. Hanscom stated that chronic pain and sleep issues were correlated, or deeply connected (I can't remember his exact phrasing). But I remember around 2005 or 06 when I began working with some of the TMS docs that Dr. Sarno trained they told me that sleep and pain were "not always correlated." I still have my m-s where Dr. Sopher wrote in the margin "Nope!!" where I said sleep would help with the problem. He told me that some chronic pain sufferers sleep very well all night with no issues, and then wake up to severe pain. A few years later I asked Dr. Sarno about that and he confirmed it, the two are not always tied together.

Anyone can draw their own conclusions on TMS practices any way they want. Readers prerogative.

Steve

 

This is the TMS site so we push TMS KNOWLEDGE PENICILLIN like a corner drug dealer pushes pot and crack. People here and myself in particular, are very cautious to advise newbees and oldbees who have symptoms, to be checked out by a competent physician, preferably an objective TMS one, BEFORE pursuing the TMS route. This site is plastered with boilerplate warnings to that effect. No one in chronic pain discovers this site first. It's after years of allopathic medicine failing them by not having the knowledge or the courage to tell them their pain could be emanating from their mind and not the reverse. I have NEVER seen anyone here say EVERYTHING is TMS. The common denominator is about 80% is TMS and the rest due to fracture, infection, and other REAL causes. Also, TMS can result in serious dis-eases that should be treated, along with using TMS to turn down the volume control on the pain. 99.9% of internet dis-ease sites are devoted to structural causes for dis-ease. The TMS Wiki is one of the few that deals with the mind/psychosomatic as the source of chronic pain. If every thread here warned of all the "side-effects" that may not be TMS, it would start sounding like one of those TV commercials required by the FDA to list every known side effect of an RX--including the old stand-by "DEATH"--this is the TMS wiki--don't ask a barber if you need a haircut. In your own case you mention that you had a "pretty obvious physical disorder for 15 years", that doctors missed. I don't think it could have been that obvious since you are married to a physician and he didn't recognize it either. There are mystery diseases that are very rare and hard to DX, and there was even a TV show that featured them. Modern medicine is pretty good at dx'ing the structural, even when they are not the cause of the pain but harmless anomalies, and the true cause being TMS. Like the Good Doctor says: "Surgery is our best placebo."

 

Funny, I almost feel lucky that in my case (CRPS) official medicine simply threw the towel in. My Kaiser doctors timidly offered me epidural shots, knowing well it would not work. They seemed to feel relieved when I was leaving their offices - that they don't have anything to offer and I would not show up again. Dr. Sarno, SteveO and the rest of TMS community are the only ones who give me hope that one day I will be able to feel my hands as normal.

 

I think you're right TG, the docs I talk to seem to realize the shots won't work because they are the ones watching the failed effects. But they don't know what else to do, they are trained to come up with answers and people are desperate for relief.

The news is spreading though, due to the vast successes in healing everywhere. I'm working with more MDs now on their own health, and thanks to Dr. Sarno they're seeing the big picture. Timing is everything in life, especially in music!

Feeling your hands "as normal" will happen when fear is reduced.

 

I was thinking about the positive aspects of journaling, and want to summarize/mention:
--It gives evidence of the pyschological, rather than physical, so it is part of the "belief in TMS process." (Forest/Sarno reference)
--It encourages more feeling, more depth of feeling, more variety of feeling, which means less has to be repressed. (With some exceptions for improvement, which you point out well Steve: some people are awash in feeling already, much of it guilt, sadness, Inner Critic activity, which, without skillful guidance, journaling may not "help.") This aspect of "feeling more" through journaling may be a way that students of TMS can do what Dr. Sarno recommended with therapy. "It helps them feel more." -from the DVD/Video Lecture, I believe. Although for this aspect of encouraging feeling more, Dr. Sarno moved patients right on to therapy, rather than more journaling!
--It can bring us closer to our own experience, which is satisfying, and a form of love, which helps soothe, and provide insight and guidance, including what we can do in our TMS journey. It is a focused time for reflection, rather than endless "symptom fixing/avoiding."
--I agree with others who say that "trying to journal yourself out of pain, or find the magic reason for pain through journaling" are only, unfortunately probably causing more tension. Which points to the subtlety of Dr. Sarno's approach, which is so easy to trammel, unwittingly, in our effort to stop symptoms. We want a real form of effective "work" without causing more tension!

 

Well said AndyB, it all depends on what that person needs. When their life is laid about before them they may see something they haven't been aware of, add significance to it through recognition, and then begin to release.

I was always "going through" my mind, "I did this, this happened, could it be this?...." Mine was a constant seeking of causes and effects, mentally. I didn't need to also write it all out. To me, writing was just added work onto a life of added work: repetition of the unwanted.

But to many others it has been an invaluable tool for the reasons you mention here. This was great, "It can bring us closer to our own experience." Nice!

 

Way back in the days before his book was published, David Hanscom generously made the working copy available as a pdf to anyone and everyone. It was this book that started my healing and gave me back my sanity.

For those who may not be familiar with his work, Hanscom is a salvage spine surgeon which means people go to him when previous surgeries have failed. He is not an instigator of such surgeries but rather a compassionate and quite courageous soul dealing with the mess others have made and do not help to put right. I believe he should be respected and congratulated for this.

Comparisons between Hanscom and Sarno are invidious and mainly serve to confuse people especially newcomers to this site and the concepts in general. The beauty of this wiki is the wide net it casts; it is inclusive and diverse and for this reason the healings are legion.

Perhaps my take and knowledge of the brain is different by dint of being a psychologist caring for a Parkinson's sufferer. I am in the field and the thick of it. I understand completely the assertion that Hippocrates made, that the physician and the patient work in harmony with nature to activate the body's own healing capabilities.

Sleep is when the brain heals itself (the glia open channels that permit removal of toxic build-up. This unique healing channel is ten times more active in the sleeping brain as compared to the waking brain. This is why sleep deprivation leads to a deterioration in brain function).

Sleep also quiets a *noisy brain* (neuromodulation). Sufferers of chronic pain and brain problems generally have a sympathetic nervous system stuck in the on position. Hence the reason so many people on this forum begin to improve and recover when they employ techniques to bring the parasympathetic back on-line. Sleep, relaxation and mindfulness are manna from heaven for healing.

Back to Hanscom, one other invaluable gift of his work is his rich understanding of the way anxiety is a factor in chronic pain, and how it interacts with anger. Every day people post here with anxiety, fear and panic attack issues. I am grateful these aspects are acknowledged now because it was a battle-royal before. (Kudos to Eric Watson for his gentle insistence that this mattered).

Recent years have seen Western Neuroscience combine with Eastern Traditions to create a most beloved love-child. We have an incredible range of techniques and practices with which to engage our mind, brain and body. We should rejoice in this rather than nit-pick over details.

David Hanscom I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Forest I salute you for understanding that fresh insights do not replace Sarno's grand work but enrich it.

 

Nice post Plum, didn't know you were a psychologist, do you treat TMS sufferers? What do your fellow psychologist say when you tell them about TMS/psychosomatic dis-ease? I bump into a lot of psychologists in the hot-tub and none of them have ever heard of Sarno or show any interest--shocking! I consider them "paid for buddies."

I have an anecdote for you regarding "parkinson's" from my personal experience, There was a music professor I was acquainted with who worked out at the pool regularly. He had been DX'ed with parkinson's . His wife was his aide and he was able to quite remarkably, propel himself haltingly into the pool. It always looked like he would surely stumble face forward and fall flat-out onto the concrete, but he never missed. I gave him a copy of Sarno, he gave it back saying something to the effect that it was very interesting. After going to one of the best teaching hospital's nearby, he told me they said what he had wasn't parkinson's. I asked him what did they say he had, he said they didn't know.

 

Hey Tom,

I'm not practising because my partner needs lots of tender, loving care however I nurture my passion and do my best to help folk where and when I can. Oftentimes a tangential approach helps best anyway, the confidence of strangers and all that. In the past I was involved in helping a very noble man who helped families avoid home repossessions (foreclosure) and a lot of this was late in the day intervention so there was lashings of stress involved. It goes without saying that tms has a field day in such a traumatic and heart-rending environment.

I have to say I've always been at odds with most psychologists. Many are well-intentioned, some hapless but there's a lot of conventional, mainstream and frankly lazy thinking which is not helped by the hoops people have to jump through to further careers. I've endured a lot of eye-rolling and have been called fluffy more times than I care to mention.

It's the same kind of professional indifference I see in a too many medical consultants and doctors. Nurses tend to be kinder and more well informed but then they are dealing with actual sufferers rather than barking out redundant prognosis based on outdated thinking.

Part of the reason I'm such a cheerleader for neuroscience is because a shiny new field called neuropsychology has emerged in recent years and it answers many questions, provides tangible solutions and lends hope a parachute.

Thanks for the Parkinson's story. It is an often misdiagnosed condition and neither myself or my partner are wedded to it. We take a very proactive mindbody approach and we're doing well with it. We were told he'd be dead by now. Talk about nocebos and bone-pointing! Thank the gods we made a f*** that decision from the start.

Oddly enough I have a tendency to recommend Sarno in the hot-tub too. Lots of backache sufferers there. Maybe we can start a revolution.

 

Hey Plum,
Have you read the neurologist Norman Doidge's book The Brain's Way of Healing? There is a whole chapter devoted to Parkinson's and one man's remarkable journey of recovery. All consistent with TMS/mindbody theory.

 

Forest, the same is true for me. I find the anatomy really gives me a place to hang my hat. Strangely in every other area of life I favour the vague and poetic but with this the hard details are grounding and reassuring. Maybe this is because it assists in making the leap of faith we do need with tms. I'm chuffed that I introduced you to Rick Hanson. He really is the best. I like how in one of his books he suggested his patient call her amygdala "Amy" and simply chat to her. Calm down Amy, it'll be alright kinda thing. He makes the science very approachable and practical. Again, good for people like me who can be a bit dense sometimes.

Honestly my dear I cannot thank you enough for your support over the years. In no small way you are a hero for me (and doubtless I have sent you wine-induced rambles to this affect ).

The backstory to David Hanscom's work truly is the epitome of courage and I am grateful that you posted it. It helps immensely and gifts more understanding than any simple explanation of theory can offer. I am aware it is considered *unprofessional* to spill ones metaphorical guts but to those trapped in one of Dante's Circles of Hell it is THE life raft. This person was drowning and they made it back to shore. Pushing that analogy to breaking point, my niece is studying to be an environmental disaster specialist and she told us that the way to survive water-based incidents is to relax. It is the fighting against the tide or current that is our undoing. If we can relax like a rag doll eventually the water will spit us out. This resonates with the whole tms thing I find.