The mind/body revolution: how the division between ‘mental’ and ‘physical’ illness fails us all

Article from The Guardian today. Have only skimmed so far but might be of interest.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jan/26/the-mindbody-revolution-how-the-division-between-mental-and-physical-illness-fails-us-all (The mind/body revolution: how the division between ‘mental’ and ‘physical’ illness fails us all)

 

I decided to listen to a podcast on YouTube featuring one of the authors mentioned in the article. He uses different terminology but essentially describes TMS/perceived danger pain in some of his anecdotes.



Good to see these ideas reaching a wider audience and some additional research to add a bit more scientific heft to the theories.

 

This is a fascinating article. The study of TMS is my TMS. That said, I have an open question about this part:

The first is that if inflammation can cause what we recognise as depression...

This statement does not fit my personal experience. Without going into a long debate, colds (sore throats, laryngitis, URIs of all kinds, etc) are a TMS equivalent symptom, at least in some of us. The statement that inflammation causes depression has also been made in a number of medical research papers. I've noticed that I get colds much less often than I used to after learning about TMS, and they never anymore have association with other sick people, the season, atmospheric humidity, on and on. Colds are a fear reaction of intermediate intensity, at least for me. They've always been. I even had a dream about it that told me precisely that. The brain/mindbody knows how to quietly eliminate a respiratory virus without you feeling a symptom, just like it doesn't ordinarily give a shit about a herniated disc, with accurate understanding and low enough fear, rage, etc.

My time course has been: something unexpected makes me afraid; the first thing I notice is a sore throat (laryngeal tension); if the fear is intense/overwhelming the cold "blooms" into the usual cold symptoms lasting a week or two. By the second half of the symptoms, I actually feel great emotionally. I feel happy, peaceful, hopeful, more loving than usual. This is when I am coughing and hacking up green snot. It's green because it's full of mixed inflammatory cells and sloughed respiratory cells, coming off from inflamed airway tissues at some anatomical level(s). Visual proof of inflammation that anybody can see easily. So I would say the opposite of what this article says on this particular point, Depression (or other unpleasant emotions) causes inflammation. TMS theory might say the cold is a distraction, a psychological defense.

Has anyone else had this experience? This may be too personal, but like Jan, if you recall the last time you had an RA symptom, did a specific emotional reaction precede the symptom? How did you feel subjectively after the symptom was established (i.e. some sort of visual evidence of joint inflammation was present) and then began to abate? If anyone else has experienced this, why might it be so?

 

The way they explain it in Mickel therapy makes a lot of sense to me. They say that when you are in a situation that is not working for you, your system will 'send you' emotions first to try and get you to take some kind of action. If the emotions are not getting your attention and getting you to resolve the issue, your system will next send you physical symptoms.
You may or may not consciously feel the early emotions, depending on how in touch you are with your feelings in general.
I've also heard that some people, their system is like 'fast', going quickly from emotion to physical symptom.
They see infections as basically opportunistic, like your feelings are frozen in general, and this makes you more susceptible to viruses , etc. I don't think they see inflammation as much more than some general response, type of thing.

 

This makes sense. So then, when you're aware of the emotions, how do you respond in Mickel therapy? I've been focusing on my inner bodily sensations and letting them be - heart rate and rhythm, breath, abdominal visceral sensations like the pit of the stomach (celiac plexus). When something really upsets me, like a misbehaving child, I can lie down and listen to my heart pound for half an hour or more. Sometimes I just go out. If it persists, running 8-10 miles settles it down, temporarily. Is there something more?

 

In Mickel therapy they have you respond by acting on your emotions, in socially acceptable ways and without hurting anyone. If you can't figure out what action to take, then you just identify what you would do 'in an ideal world'.

So, if the emotion is anger, you are supposed to stand up for yourself, speak up for what you need, "disallow" others from treating you unfairly, and just generally put your own needs ahead of other peoples'.

Your approach of just being with your emotions or getting exercise sounds like a good one...the problem I ran into with Mickel therapy is that while it did basically 'switch off' the (CFS and arthritis) symptoms I had been having, it didn't really "work" for my life.

They tell you the opposite of what Sarno does, they tell you that your every feeling is totally justified, everyone will surely go along with your every request, you will surely be super successful at everything, blah blah blah blah blah.... I wound up horribly disappointed, to put it mildly.

 

What an excellent suggestion, Jan! I hope many others take you up on this.

Here are my favorites:

“….as [Dr. Monty] Lyman puts it, “your brain is less focused on reality than it is on meaning.”

“It is now possible to measure some surprising gaps between what we think is happening within us (and therefore the information to which our brains react), and what is actually going on. And, baldly put, we are often not very good at it.”

Pretty powerful, huh?

Our brains are doing this "predictive processing," where there are expectations and a storyline in place. Instead of some objective reality, our brains are trying to stick to a familiar script and adjusting as we move along. And, we don't see it. We think we should trust these 'gut feelings' and that we really do know what's going on.

 

I read the thread kinda in a hurry, my bad if someone already said that. It's just I saw Jan recommend The Myth of Normal, and the topic is about the false dichotomy mind/body. I'm still on chapter 5 but one thing Mate said that stuck with me is that trauma also happens when we don't accept our body, meaning our body becomes a place of danger and we try to shy from the it, escaping inside the mind. I imagine that "body" translates to the image we think others have about ourselves, but also the image we have about ourselves.

I also had an ordinary childhood and could find nothing that translated as trauma. Through journaling and emotional release though I started noticing a pattern, comparing my life to my childhood friends who had more toys, more friends, travelled more etc. My parents worked a lot so I'd only see them in the evenings. I remember the day my father got fired, I was jumping in happiness. And now I'm starting to understand how all of that paved the way to a victimization that dressed my identity in the years to come, a troubled and fearful mind who'd always shame myself for the things that didn't work out.

And now I'm starting to grasp how an ordinary childhood is in a lot of ways not so ordinary.

 

Another article from Monty Lyman: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/01/doctor-hypnotherapy-ibs-changed-belief-pain (I am a doctor, and having hypnotherapy for IBS has changed my belief about pain | Monty Lyman)

This quote could have come straight out of Dan Buglio's book:

"It comes down to a simple formula: to rewire your brain out of long-term pain, you need to persistently provide it with evidence of safety and reduce evidence of threat."