TMS Practitioner Training?

I've recently read Dr Sarno's "Healing Back Pain" and extremely taken by it. I'm an acupuncturist and can absolutely attest to the mind body connection, particularly with pain. I would love to begin educating my patients about TMS. I was wondering if there is any type of practitioner training or qualifications one needs to do this?

I am particularly curious where the exact locations are for the spots of tenderness that are generally found in TMS patients.

Thank you for your help!

 

I go to an acupuncturist-Chinese medicine guy, Alyssa, whenever I get an intuition that I need to have a deep tissue massage-acupuncture session. I don't do it for relieving TMS pain so much as because it allows me to "travel" inside my central nervous system to those places where I have repressed emotions in my physical body. A successful acupuncture session also lets me monitor how I'm doing with my TMS therapy. It's like a laboratory environment where I actually get to visualize how much emotionality I'm repressing in my physical body. For me at least, it seems to function as a guided meditation that lets me feel my repressed emotions and actively release them. What I'm saying is that acupuncture shouldn't just be used for pain relief but as a way to go "deep" psychologically and directly experience the mind-body connection. I don't know how this correlates with your experience as a practitioner, but it sure seems to work for me! It's not so much as if I go to the acupuncturist-massage therapist to have him "fix" me as much as I interact with the therapist to fix and heal myself. A two-way dialog if you will.

Would be nice to hear how much my experience correlates with your own?

 

Hi Alyssa,

I'm a Reiki Master and I've started mentioning TMS to some clients and referring a few of them to my own TMS doctor. I also mention Dr. Sarno in some of my classes where it seems relevant. I'm happy to talk about it more with you if you message me.

~ Veronica

 

Those tender points aren't in everyone, and not necessary to have TMS. I think it's just one more check-off on their TMS check-lists. No one knows why they exist. I called them TMS black holes; wingtip or toroidal vortices. All matter and time are crushed out of existence. I would guess it reveals that the ANS is in hyper-mode.

SO

 

I would have to agree with you there, Steve. I believe they're referred to as 'trigger points'. My acupuncturist-Chinese medicine-'witch doctor' first evaluates me, then releases these 'trigger points'. If he can't eliminate one of these with massage, he goes on to acupressure. If that won't get the area to relax, he brings out his needles and lances it. Sometimes there's a great release of energy in me when the 'trigger point' finally relaxes. What I notice too is that the same time I'm also moving through my inner consciousness. Sometimes memories come back from childhood or high school. Any latent psychological content also comes out as the 'trigger point' relaxes. I would imagine Alyssa knows a whole lot more about this stuff than me. All I know is that after an acupuncture session I come away really, really relaxed and in a positive frame of mind that lasts maybe 48 hours. But the changes do seem increment over time too.

If you looked at these 'trigger points' from the perspective of Dr Sarno's TMS theory, it seems like their existence is an indication that the patient is repressing emotions into his unconscious mind and in the process stirring up the ANS. I know that according to the Chinese system we all have astral bodies that reside in our physical bodies and that each area of the astral body is associated with a particular emotion. The lower lumbar region in particular being associated with fear.

But all this alchemical-astrological mumbo jumbo aside, it still sounds as if what you need to do to really stop those 'trigger points' from appearing is to stop repressing your emotions in the here and now. Not really sure whether acupuncture has helped me resolve my TMS, but it certainly does let you get in direct contact with your body-mind.