Dr. Hanscom's Blog Recovery from OCD, pain, and toxic childhood

From Dr David Hanscom's email newsletter March 17,2025

Why I Keep Pushing Forward – A Mother’s Story of Healing

I am sharing these letters from a former patient to explain why I continue to work to help people escape from pain. As a complex spine surgeon, much of my practice involved treating patients deeply in The Abyss who had lost hope of escape. What drives me is not just that patients heal, but that it happens to a breathtaking degree. People thrive and continue on their paths. Your body knows how to heal.



Letter #1

I received this first letter many years ago, and don’t recall any details.

Hi Dr. Hanscom. I just wanted to thank you for your book and your work in the field of chronic pain. I was a back pain sufferer for over 20 years and miraculously healed from that condition, in no small part because of your work. Your book was pivotal in my journey, and I’m so thankful that you were brave and persistent enough to write it. What a great service to others! I just wanted you to know that you have helped me regain a life that I only dreamed about for so very long, and I’m sure you have done the same for countless others.

God bless you, my friend

Letter #2

I received this letter this week. She describes her journey out of pain. I am continually amazed every time I witness it, and feel privileged to be able to pass on these healing concepts. What I am also excited about is her sharing her issues with OCD. OCD is considered an entity to be managed and rarely solvable.

Repetitive Unpleasant Thoughts (RUTs) were the worst aspect of my 15-year ordeal. I was battered by extreme intrusive thoughts every few minutes towards the end. I also escaped and have learned to help others out of this miserable situation.

My new book on RUTs will be published later this year. There is a lot of data supporting the way out, and what the medical profession has overlooked is that threat physiology is the driving force. It is solvable by separating from your thoughts, calming down the nervous system, softening your ego, and stimulating neuroplasticity.

People who engage in The DOC Journey course often have fewer RUTs and less anxiety. I am committed to streamlining the process.

Hi Dr. Hanscom, I have been meaning to reach back out to you for years to thank you for how you’ve changed my life. I saw you for one visit back in 2012 – it was a post-op visit from a back surgery I had in the Midwest right before moving to Seattle. I’ll never forget meeting you, having you look at my scans, and looking me in the eye to tell me I had an excellent chance at recovering and living pain free. I’d never heard that from a surgeon before (I’d never heard it from any providers I’d seen over 10 years of ongoing chronic pain and searching for answers).

You then handed me your book and also connected me to one of your MD facilitator doctors for follow up and ongoing visits as I managed my pain. I’ll admit, I did not want to read some book to help me with my pain. I’d tried everything, but there was no way a book was going to do the trick. However, my husband began to read it, and eventually he told me, “You need to read this book! I think you also struggle with anxiety!”.

I reluctantly read it, and immediately appreciated how you explained chronic pain as a real experience for the person in pain, and yet how neural pathways can amplify the pain (the real pain). Very few people get that right, and it was so common to feel like no one believed you and your pain.

I followed the protocol in your book – I read all the books included (The Talent Code being my favorite). I began to dig into my past, which I had never done before. I met with your facilitator MD and followed her instructions as well. I got good sleep for a month, I started free writing (and I couldn’t believe what my thoughts actually were). I told all of my family to read the book (4 siblings and a mom), who I now know have severe mental illness (ranging from OCD to anorexia and depression).
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