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

I love this idea of visualizing throwing punches. So ironic (or not) that my hands started curling into fists on their own. This is my most recent symptom and happened at a time when things were heating up with my sister (again).

 

Yes!!! Love this!

 

Ok, and I'll make a separate post about the 5 Why's so that doesn't get lost either.

 

As Ellen noted above, imagining crushing mother’ skull is an element of ISTDP. In ISTDP, this is called a portrayal. But there is a lot more to portrayals than imagining crushing mother’s skull. ISTDP psychiatrist Nat Kuhn, MD, wrote about that in his book Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy: A Reference. As is obvious from what he said, his target audience for the book is other psychotherapists. He wrote:

“In portrayal, the patient imagines playing out the impulse associated with some feeling. . . . There is nothing intrinsically therapeutic about a portrayal. Many patients have elaborate revenge fantasies which only worsen their difficulties by reinforcing unconscious guilt, in turn fostering additional self-sabotage. When therapists encourage portrayals without first mobilizing unconscious feelings and/or without helping the patient to experience the entire range of complex feelings (that is, grief, guilt, and love, in addition to rage), the results can include dropout, symptom exacerbation, and potentially acting out. . . . When guilt is not experienced, symptoms will worsen rather than improve.”​

Kuhn explains that the phrase “complex feelings” means “a mixture of positive feelings (e.g., love or appreciation) and negative feelings (generally anger).” Portrayal of the entire range of complex feelings would go something like this: (1) you feel angry at a person you love, (2) you feel grief (or sadness) about the less-than-desired status of your relationship with that person, (3) you feel guilty about having gotten angry at him or her, and (4) you realize that despite your anger you do indeed feel love for him or her.

I am not a therapist, let alone an ISTDP therapist. I’m just an old guy who overcame more than half a century of various forms of TMS and TMS equivalents. Sarno’s chief psychologist, Arlene Feinblatt, helped him design his treatment program, and she was trained in ISTDP. That motivated me to read the main texts on ISTDP, like Kuhn’s book. For what it is (or is not) worth Dianna-M, I will offer a couple thoughts about your journaling portrayals.

First, as Kuhn noted, unconscious guilt can make the portrayer’s situation worse. It has been said that guilt is the most painful of the core ISTDP emotions and therefore is often deeply repressed. Congratulations on being able to feel guilty about your anger. It is good that you don’t repress the guilt.

Second, given what Kuhn wrote, I wonder whether it might be helpful if your journaling were to go beyond portraying your anger and include portraying your guilt. Conscious anger carries a behavioral impulse of aggressive action toward the object of your anger, while guilt carries a behavioral impulse to repair the relationship damage caused by your anger if possible—to reach out and apologize, comfort the object of the anger. How about writing about that behavioral impulse? Beyond portraying not just anger but also guilt, I wonder if it might be helpful if your journaling were to include portraying your grief or sadness about the status of your relationship with the object of your anger and, above all, include portraying your love for the object of your anger.

 

Ugh -- that's defeating the whole purpose. We're hiding the anger because of the very natural human/animal "behavioral impulse to aggressive action toward the object of your anger" --- and that's the exact thing we need to get to and release.
Focusing on repairing the relationship and apologizing and comforting and portraying love toward the object of your is what we do every day in sublimation of the anger. And what, according to Sarno and his theory of TMS, causes the physical pain.

Why is everyone trying to do everything but what Sarno teaches? Oh wait, I know why......because that's what the TMS beast wants!

 

I too have been thinking about what you said about your having some guilt after releasing your rage on paper, @Diana-M, and reckon that it would likely be very fruitful for you to ask the '5 Whys' about it.

 

Thank You. That at least explains it..and why THAT would have never attracted me the way 'meat and potatoes' Sarno did.

Sarno taught a quick, concise and RAPID recovery system. I feel like the 'other' ones are so heady and intellectualized (too much stuff to remember, new nomenclature, etc) that they are diluting the power of the original message. I got better in 3-5 weeks..that is 1000% pain free. Oh yeah, I got tricked again, and it snuck in sideways, but as my understanding of its many faces grew (via this forum among other resources) The Quality of my life went from SHIT to AMAZING in a very short amount of time.

I do not think these other 'versions' are bad...But I think the lack of complete and total rapid change dilutes the power of the OG message. This happens in all sorts of groups.

Of the people I have worked with personally, ALL of them have gotten better quickly. Weeks. Sometimes Days. Just like Sarno said.
This is frigging SHOCK Therapy. Maybe I am well suited to that because I have been Impulsive, thoughtless, and a drama queen . But I tend to lose the thread on anything I don't see working, and right soon.

Then I guess my prayers DO reach the unconscious, because when I am going through a recovery phase, I always ask God for a Pass... But I use very graphic and angry tools. In fact, I think they are always there way down in the cellar...but when we need to recover from an episode , we need to pry open that trap door that remains closed most of the time.

...and this is where Freud becomes helpful. Most of polite society scorns him (Like Sarno) BUT I am pretty sure he was on to something...our 'better' selves that tend to disappear in times of troubles doesn't want him to be right, but he was.

 

This is fair, and interesting to hear of your success rates. I'm someone who's been aware of TMS stuff for probably 6 years now but have been dealing with this specific symptom for just over 2, so the idea of that rapid release/recovery is obviously super appealing. But so far haven't managed it. Without it being an excuse, I think having OCD has really made it all "stickier", like gum caught in hair. For about the first year of these symptoms, I genuinely never thought about them (because I was fixated on other ones) so am now catching up on doing the emotional work, etc.

 

I will note that in the session that Alan did with the guy who fantasized about crushing his mother's skull, Alan also weaved in and brought out quite a lot of positive emotion that the guy felt toward his mother. It was *definitely* a complex set of feelings. There was love and pity and sorrow and regret and rage and murder all mixed together. My sense is that the mixture of positive and negative feelings was a big part of what made the session so therapeutic for the guy.

 

I wonder if the guilt we often feel when feeling anger comes from the people-pleasing part of the TMS personality, as described by Sarno. We want everyone to like us and see us as a good person. This is also a defense mechanism, since if people like us they won't attack us and we'll stay safe. So expressing anger (even privately) makes us feel vulnerable.

People pleasing can also be the stress response of "fawning", as in fight,flight,freeze, fawn. We develop this response as powerless children, since by flattering and fawning over others, we can be safe from the actions and words of parents and/or siblings. I've become aware of this characteristic in myself in the last year or so.

 

@Duggit ,
Thank you for this!!! This will help me a lot! It will make it a lot easier to do this work. I appreciate all your study and for sharing your wisdom with me. I am amazed you overcame so much. I, too, have a lot to overcome. I really appreciate your input!

 

I don’t mind expressing rage, just gruesome killing rage. I have done things like put my mother in a metal cage and clanging the bars with a metal rod until she can’t stand it anymore. I don’t feel guilty about that one. Just skull crushing, etc. But yes. I can definitely apply the 5 whys to why it’s so hard for me to even feel the least amount of anger at all. Thanks for that idea, @BloodMoon!

 

@Baseball65
I hang on every word when you describe how you manage your TMS. Oh, HOW I wish I could heal that fast. It happened to me once, the first time I had hand tingling—and when I first found Sarno. That went away in a month or so. Then it circled back about 3 years later and slammed me like I am today with 12 symptoms and digging out for the past 3 years with a lot of effort but not a lot of pain relief yet. Although I have really cleaned some mental closets with all the therapy and journaling. And I’m learning so much here in the wiki. I wish wish wish I could just do what you do and get rid of this!

 

I agree with this 100 percent! People pleasing for me as a small child with violent parents felt like a life or death survival skill. And now I mostly people please or fawn and am realizing that much of the time I’m infuriated with myself for it because I don’t really want to be doing it. Without a doubt it’s TMS inducing! And I’m working on being more honest in my behavior. The journaling is helping. And also, just plain bravery. Feeling terrible for a while by being true to myself. Getting used to the new feelings of not fawning.

 

Great! Since I read your posting about the '5 Whys', I haven't stopped using it. Today, I had to see an eye specialist (about a condition not TMS related) and something he did irritated and then really angered me. Before I knew about the '5 Whys' I would definitely have realised that I was raging inside, but I wouldn't have been able to analyse the 'whys' of it all so relatively easily and quickly and then, as a consequence, been able to 'shake it off' so easily and quickly too. (My problem's always been that, more than buried rage, I am only too aware when things annoy and anger me and it all goes around and around inside my head, so often without resolution, despite doing things like journaling etc.) Thanks again - in fact, I can't thank you enough for this - I more than think it's going to be a game changer for me!

 

Gosh, I'm so happy to hear that.
The funny/interesting thing is that so many different things often all lead back to the same darn thing once you get into the deeper level whys.

When I journal now I get pretty quickly to the deep one and then I can spend time chatting with my inner self
"She does love us! She was proud of us!"
"She was flawed too....she was hurt. Remember all the pain she had about her mother...."

Years ago (long, long before I knew TMS or journaled) I came to a realization which although obvious felt like an epiphany.
Our parents are just people too. They are not super human or super heroes. They are just regular flawed people that are fucked up just like the rest of us.

 

This morning I tried adding some nails onto my imaginary bat.
I have a particular situation which is eating away at me. It involves world/political events so I shouldn't say what specifically.
The generic version is that a woman I am FB friends with whom I agree with on 75% of her stances is posting things which I find very painful.
I try to have debate/discussion on the topic because I want her to see the facts and how what she is believing is wrong and hurtful and dangerous but she doesn't respond. Sometimes one of her friends will respond and I get to at least engage with them.

I realize that it's my own issue of why I feel it's my job to get her to stop spreading bigotry and why I feel the need to speak up but that doesn't stop the deep anger and rage that I have. To be the "nice person" sometimes when I see her post on other topics I feel the urge to "Like" the posts so that she will still like me. Anyway, this morning while laying in bed, I decided I need to imaginarily whack the shit out of her with a stronger bat. My cartoon bat wasn't enough. I added some nails to it. I wanted to really imaginarily hurt her. All the pain and deep generational trauma (Ha! I never believed in generational trauma until the last 8 months) that I feel on this issue I wanted to take out on her. Whack whack whack. With nails.