A term that would make people want to learn more?

Quite a prestigious and knowledgeable group of people. Glad you are there, Forest.

 

What about

Physio-psychological symptoms (or syndrome) ?

 

Hi Forest!

I agree with you, no doubt.

By the way, Adam Heller has coined one more term «diversion pain syndrome»

Too many names for the same concept! Very confusing.

All the best.

 

This is such a great initiativ!
I opted for stress illness symptoms. One the one hand people can easily relate to stress and on the other hand its only 'symptoms', not disorder etc. As for the 'illness': there is a difference between illness and disease. Illness is very much the subjective feeling of being ill. While disease or disorder are well-defined and terminological fixed medical conditions. I am not sure if everyone knows the distinction. And then 'illness' would also indicate a sort of disease. That would be rather unfortunate. So, maybe the more general 'mind-body-symptoms' is the best one.
And btw I am really happy that it is not called a syndrome! Syndrome always indicate that you don't know what it really is, like Bladder-Pain-Syndrome.

Here in Europe, people are not so afraid of calling it psychosomatic. But I know that this for many people means 'its all in your head' and that it doesn't emphazise the new research on neural pathways etc.

I guess it is really good to distinguish how to adress this condition for the academic and medical community and how to phrase it for the wider public. However, this can also lead to confusion.

Wish you and the group success!

 

Thanks for asking, Forest.

And thanks to everyone in the PPD Association, which has a great website presence, and to which I've sent physicians, psychologists to learn about PPD.

I like the use of Symptoms, which is the first I've seen in this way. It is much better in my opinion than Disorder or Syndrome because it is less scary, less stigmatizing, and recognizes more the universality of TMS, and it sounds less permanent, more plastic. "We're working with symptoms, not a disorder."

Illness is a little softer too for me than Disorder or Syndrome, but still not as easy to digest as Symptoms.

I like the 'Stress' word because it is easier for most folks to accept, including physicians. On the other hand, many like me were not aware of what we think of as "stress" as the causality, so the word stress may seem confusing.

Andy B

 

I used to think "psychophysiologic" was a good way to avoid the stigma of "psychosomatic," i.e., all in the head, because it implies that psychological factors can produce actual physiological changes. But recently my wife saw a copy of Dr. Schubiner's new book, co-authored with Dr. Allan Abbass, on my desk. She glanced at the title, Hidden from View: A Clinician's Guide to Psychophysiologic Disorders, and instantly said pschophysiologic = psychosomatic.

What about terminology that Abbass has also used, that appears on one of the pages of tmswiki.org, and that has a nice acronym like TMS: medically unexplained symptoms (MUS).

 

and what about AOS (Autonomic Overload Syndrome) by Dr. Scott Brady ?

 

Yes to stress symptoms. A LOT of people don't want to look at TMS as a possible healing method purely because there is a psychological component and they can't admit it to themselves (and can't see how this would be a problem). But they know they have stress in their lives and can admit that. I was in this boat just a year ago. I never would have guessed that anything would've been wrong with me psychologically.

 

I personally think psychosomatic pain is a mighty fine descriptor but people are very defensive. I like TMS too, Sarno was clearly trying to find the perfect way to describe the pain and the source of the pain and I have so much respect for that.
I don't like anything related to "stress" or "overload" because, to me, those imply that if you just meditate, do yoga or "de-stress" you will feel better and not only is that missing the mark but that sort of pop culture idea of stress and it's cure becomes another perfectionist/not good enough obsession.

 

I agree with you.
TMS is the best option. Changing from «tension myositis sindrome» to «tension myoneural syndrome» to « the MindBody Sindrome» reflects the evolving meaning of that extraordinary phenomenom and is the perfect tribute to the sagacity and intelligence of dr. John Sarno.

 

I am going to retract my vote for mindbody symptoms. I watched this movie on Netflix called "Heal" in which people used the term "mindbody" frequently, but in the context of a New Age/Holistic Health model that includes diet modifications and various alternative healing strategies. It is not consistent with the treatment recommended for TMS, as I understand it. So I think we need to distinguish ourselves from the New Age/Holistic Health community.

I don't really like any of the terms listed above to be honest. I think psychophysiological symptoms is most accurate, but I understand why people are turned off by the "psycho" part, as the term psychosomatic has been misused and misunderstood for so long. We do need one, acceptable term to use. Guess I'll change my vote to neural pathway symptoms.

 

Yes, these are my exact thoughts! Both these terms are so ever present with entirely different and unhelpful ways.