TMS Theories vs Practical Applications - Kitchen Sink Edition (retitled 6.19.24)

Oh!!! I was referring to the Pain Recovery Program on this wiki. So, I was confused, too! I’ve never heard of the Pain Reprocessing Therapy.

 

Visualizing bashing my sister's head with a bat is what made my throat pain go away. (Sorry, sis! I think she might come to this forum too. LOL).
I've started keeping that visual bat handy so I can whack my (dead) mother and other people over the head as needed as well.

I realize it makes you sound like a psychopath and I hate to think of other people wanting to whack the shit out of MY head, though I'm sure plenty of people would do well by visualizing that!

It's important to note that visualizing whacking the crap out of someone has nothing to do with wanting to do that in real life.
I don't want to whack my sister or my (dead) mother in real life.

I am surprised though, and somewhat in awe, that Alan Gordon does that with patients/clients. That seems risky for him personally if one of them is psychotic and murders someone in real life by crushing their skull and then blames him. I don't think a judge or jury would understand.

 

That’s amazing you cured your throat pain that way. Maybe it symbolized you couldn’t tell her how mad you were. Then finally you did with the figurative bat!

You know what sucks? Is having so many people in your life who you need to take the bat to! It’s a whoopin’ backlog!

 

It was amazing and I'm not exaggerating the situation at all.
The ridiculous thing is that it's just completely dumb stuff like pent up childhood jealousy. It's amazing how much of that I have inside of me. I could unleash an oceanful. It extends to some current jealousy as well which is really unfounded (rationally) but I still feel it bubbling.

The reality is that I'm a lucky girl (old lady!) and I really don't have people in my life that need a good whoopin'.
It's more that my beastly brain has a pile full of kaka of having to get my (dead) mother's approval. Part of that means having to be the best. The winner. No room for anything less.
A great trait for success in life....and a not so great trait for health anxiety and other beastly things.

 

I can so relate to all of that!

 

I believe that is an example of ISTDP therapy--Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy. It's widely used by TMS therapists. Besides Gordon, Schubiner uses it (and gives examples in his book) and the psychiatrist, Allan Abass. It requires specialized training and is used to treat other conditions besides TMS. It's possible to find therapists trained in it who aren't specifically treating TMS.

 

For TMS recovery, bringing the rage into conscious awareness is all that's required. There is no need to express it to others, though it can be helpful to imagine expressing it as in ISTDP therapy (the Gordon example). Expressing rage to others can be harmful to our work and social relationships. Best to do it on paper or in our imagination.

 

This is the best damn thread! @JanAtheCPA is it possible to rename it so others can find it in the future?

 

My suggestion is to make your journaling a daily habit, perhaps at the end of each day so that you can investigate what has occurred during the day... that way you would be less likely to avoid investigating things like not visiting your son and realise sooner how you truly felt and why. (As I mentioned in another thread, I think that cultivating whatever TMS work that we choose to do into becoming a new habit is important; leastways, I believe it has been crucial to how far I've so far come in my recovery.)

Please give yourself a break! I surmise that you probably didn't want to go to your son's house because of how difficult it would be tackling walking with your walker somewhere new, somewhere where you might bump into furniture and there would be eyes on you from your family (assessing you, or whatever)... it was too much pressure, so don't beat yourself up about it! You are not a wimp - you've said that your body is as stiff as the tin man's, and it's not easy suffering that - I know, because for years I was a 'tin man' too! I think taking baby steps is likely to be the answer... suggest you consider practising going somewhere new using your walker (with your husband if need be) that doesn't involve the rest of your family, e.g. perhaps start by going to a local cafe or park or something for a short time and gradually build up to more when you can. I don't know if this applies to you, but when I first used my walker in public I felt very self conscious, but then after a while I didn't think anything of it and, if I thought about it at all, I reminded myself that it was a temporary solution... and it was a temporary thing.

I suspect that you do actually feel mad and the anger goes straight to, for instance, your hands and your brain gives you pain or numbness (or whatever your symptoms are) to stop you lashing out and throwing a punch (verbally and/or physically). Perhaps imagining that you're throwing some punches at those who you are angry with would help. In research it's been shown that the brain can't tell the difference between reality and the things you imagine (and that's why athletes bother to rehearse their sport in their minds before they perform and also when they can't perform due to physical injuries). Your brain is therefore liable to learn from your imaginings that it's safe to release the rage and the anger induced tension, because it will see that no one has actually suffered grievous bodily harm or died as a consequence. Imo Michael Coutts' cartoon retribution imaginings are genius in this regard - e.g. in Tom and Jerry cartoons, Tom gets hit over the head by a frying pan wielded by Spike the dog with no long-term harm done to Tom.

I don't know about your father, but you've mentioned that your mother was a narcissist, so the 'why' for her is that, being a narcissist, she was not capable of loving anyone else. Even when narcissists decide to have a 'golden child' it's not the child that they love, it's the reflection of themselves that they project on to that child that they love and so woe betide that child if they disturb that reflection. So, it's not that you're unlovable. It's sad and not fair that you had a narcissist parent that didn't give the love you deserved. My mother was a narcissist and we usually only realise what they are in our adult years (in my case, my late 50s!). Suggest you talk or write to little Diana and tell her that she's the bees knees and how wonderful she is... and make a habit of it.

Hopefully, I've not rambled on too much and that I might have said something profound that may help you along your way, rather than just repeating stuff you already know.

 

(I realise as I've written this, this is more broadly a reply to the earlier PRT discussion than to you personally, so sorry if it feels disjointed lol.)

Yeah, I appreciate this as a problem. It is annoying and it does suck but I would fall on a similar position to Ellen where sometimes, the Sarno approach doesn't resonate for someone and others' do. It's obviously bad for the over-intellecutalising () types to feel they now have to "try everything, learn everything, incorporate everything" to get better and often suffer for just not committing to one approach - but I think it's probably net-positive that there's new routes available sometimes. I think nowadays, Alan is catering more to an audience who would actively reject the "woo-woo" emotionality of the Sarno approach (even if that's the root of their issue, and even if Alan himself would acknowledge that) by offering an alternative, more sciencey-sounding route to recovery from mindbody issues - and being fair, it does work for many! In the same way people are sometimes directed to reviews of Sarno's books to prove this stuff works, you can do the same with Gordon, Schubiner, etc... but I agree that the PRT school is missing that essential emotional factor, and won't work for just as many.

I've been thinking about this a lot because I'm working with a TMS practitioner who's been around a while; she's friends with Sarno's daughter, knew/knows him and other TMS practitioners personally, has been in the game a loooong time, and now contributes to things like the PPD textbook to try get this mindbody stuff into the medical sphere. She is both quite traditional and very in touch with the modern forks of TMS/PPD/MBS because of her work (whoooo acronyms). I've discussed the merits of PRT with her before. Like people here, she loathes the overintellectualisation of the space, though she understands the impulse of the TMS brain lol. And she largely has the same objection to PRT/Alan Gordon's current approach that many here do - it's not emotional enough!

And that is a problem. He has traded away the verbiage of unconscious rage, etc. and I don't think he (often) writes about journalling etc. on his posts like Sarno references because it didn't help him when he was suffering, it just became another point of obsession. I think he's given the subject a less emotional dressing because, in the nicest way possible, he's "sold out" a bit to the conventional medical crowd in focusing so hard on the neuroscience of it... but I think that he's doing it because it lets him reach an audience who would be resistant to the original delivery of the message, even if it'd help them. (We all know people who'd freak out if it was suggested to them that their symptoms were driven by their mind. Those same people are often less resistant to the idea of their pain being a learned habit, a danger signal, etc., whatever wording is used by he/Curable and stuff...) But beneath it, and in his book, he does still preach the exact same idea that this is fuelled by loooong-running emotions that we don't need to get the bottom of to heal, we just need to become aware of them, which I think is in keeping with the original ideas. I think it's just tailored towards a crowd who'd reject them as they were.

I think if you fall into the trap of trying everything, sticking to nothing, you're always going to flounder and continue to obsess because you're still "fixing" a thing that doesn't need it. (I am here, lol.) But I also do think that basically any one of these approaches can help, it's kinda just about what one you can buy into/believe the most and which frees you from the fear/obsession of TMS OR lets you gain the insight (to borrow Ellen's phrase) required to make that epiphany alone.

 

It's no longer relevant, so you can name it whatever you want.

 

How about something like: Overview of TMS Theories and Practical Applications

 

"Kitchen Sink"?

 

I’m having problems feeling truly ok about these graphic rage releases on paper, even though therapists assure (Nichole Sachs, for one) it’s not the “real” you doing it. I am doing it, but always feel a little guilty after. Sometimes I substitute super graphic stuff for things a really small child might want to do. Like smear Pooh-pooh all over your face. And honestly, it feels just as good!

 

@BloodMoon,
Thank you for the long posts addressing my misery the other day. They are very helpful and comforting!

Great idea! This will definitely ensure I don’t miss some big things. And also, if I’m resistant to journaling, like I was that day, I can realize I probably need it more than ever.

This idea makes me feel good! I need to take it easy. I can be so hard on myself. And I appreciate this advice especially because you have been through this too.

It’s so tempting to worry what if this isn’t temporary. You are giving me hope and I’m going to chant this to myself.

This is sweet. I will do it! Made me smile.

No! You haven’t rambled. On the contrary. I’m very touched you went through and broke down my rant into bite sized pieces with comments and counsel. So valuable and appreciated!

 

haha... I like that. Pooh-pooh on the face.
The bat that I use to imaginarily whack people with isn't very strong and just kind of pushes the person downward like a cartoon character being whacked.
Actually visualizing cracking someone's skull would be wayyy too violent for me.
(And pooh pooh not quite aggressive enough.)
I guess we all have our own measure of what we need to imagine doing. (?)