Deeply repressed or not?

Someone (BruceMC?) on the Saturday referred to Monte Hueftle’s Master Practice program so I checked it out at runningpain.com where I found this on the home page:

Do you understand that TMS is not a "deeply repressed emotions" syndrome?
 Over the past 10 years I have consulted with 1,000's of Sarno, Schubiner & Schechter patients who are still struggling to reverse TMS pain symptoms from their life. They accept and believe in the TMS diagnosis but they are still stuck in the pain strategy. Why? They are searching for deeply repressed emotions, believing this is the key to ending their pain. TMS is not a deeply repressed emotions syndrome! TMS is a chronic pain syndrome caused by our day-to-day generation of inner tension and our day-to-day repression of emotional energy.

I would really appreciate some comments on this. Hueftle says "TMS is not a deeply repressed emotions syndrome!" but is caused by "repression of emotional energy" This doesn't quite make sense to me. Is he is saying that lightly repressing emotions causes tms while deeply repressing them doesn't? Probably not. But what IS he saying?

Perhaps he is just reminding us that it isn't necessary to have deeply repressed emotions to have tms. Anyway, I'd appreciate some input especially from those who have used his program.

For myself, I think that some of my emotions are deeply repressed and that, until dealt with, tms and its equivalents may continue to periodically reassert themselves.

Or perhaps this is just a matter of defining "deeply" and "day-to-day".

 

Underlying Monte's assertion, it seems to me, is a chicken/egg argument. A traumatic event in childhood or early developmental trauma can certainly lead to perfectionist and/or goodist personality traits that lead to "day-to-day generation of inner tension and our day-to-day repression of emotional energy". Just trying to go back and find some disturbing emotion from some traumatic event in early in childhood is not going to stop you from TMSing, but it can give you a greater understanding of what unpleasant emotions you're trying to repress and why. Monte is quite correct though in insisting that you have to stop generating inner tension and repressing emotional energy in the here and now. But it seems to me that there are quite a few different ways to achieve that goal, different therapies that work differently for different TMS patients. Journaling, meditation, EFT, ISTDP, EMDR, all can be applied to stopping generating inner tension and repressing emotions. Just depends on which method works best for you.

 

I haven't used his program. When I did look into it, the email I received from him actually took me completely by surprise and turned me off.

I feel, as you do, that some of my emotions are deeply repressed and may continue to generate tms until I deal with them. I don't know if "dealing" with them will necessarily require me to be able to identify every single one, but I do think it likely that I will at least have to get a pattern on them.

I don't know what Monte's intended message was. Possibly the issue is just semantics? Maybe he's differentiating a "deeply" repressed emotion as something so devastating that may have only happened once in our lives versus "chronic" repressed emotion that is such a habit that it occurs on auto-pilot causing that day to day generation of inner tension & repression of emotional energy.

Whatever his intended message, I do know for myself that I am not at a point in my healing where I can "stop" doing something without actually knowing what it is I'm stopping. I can't stop generating inner tension until I actually identify the actions or emotions that are its beginning.

 

Yes, Forest, being open to different approaches and uncovering through personal experience which one of those works best for you seems to be part of the open-minded hypothesis testing scientific mind-set so necessary to resolving TMS symptoms.

 

Thanks for all the useful input. I am one of the lucky 20% or so that can just read tms guidelines and, generally speaking, my pain vanishes. Trouble is, sooner or later, whatever I am repressing re-emerges in a new form that I don't always recognize as tms. For me, I think that resolving deep inner conflicts is important. I'd love to find (and be able to pay for) a good psychoanalyst but that's not possible for many reasons. So, I have to do it myself. Luckily, I rather enjoy the process and have found truly friendly guides both here and elsewhere.

One of the wonderful benefits of the tms forums is that people are encouraged to keep looking until they find an approach that works for them. As in a 12 step program, you find someone who "has what you want" and listen to what he or she has to say. Or to quote 12 step one more time: "Take what you like and leave the rest". Maybe it will be useful later on or maybe it's just not for you.


.