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

Wow, that is so interesting.
I wonder if that incident was steeped in the backdrop trauma from the war, the moving, her parents reactions to the war, etc.
OR if it was more what it looks like of being the new girl and trying to fit in and being blamed for something.

I wonder if the teachers weren't even mad about it and she just thought they were?
Wouldn't that be something if it stuck in her mind as this awful thing and if it wasn't even the case?
I feel like a lot of my mother's trauma about her mother wasn't legit per se.

Also the age is interesting.
I think my grandmother's "Little girl, little girl" candy story was probably when she was around a similar age as your mother's "It wasn't fair" scenario.
And I think a lot of my mother's grievances that plagued her about her mother were from around that age too.

My grown (but special ed) niece on the other who has her own set of problems constantly refers back to "when I was 7, ....."

 

I remember her telling the same tale to me earlier in her life when it wasn't 'on repeat' and I gathered that her teachers showed irritation each time she had to leave to ring the bell. This was because she had to interrupt proceedings by putting up her hand to ask permission to go and they'd say things like "yes, Jean, if you must" and "oh, yes, yes, all right, go on then!", which certainly wasn't fair on a 12 year old girl trying her best to toe the line and would have indeed seemed like a major thing to her when it was really only minor. I also gathered that she was also worried about missing out on the teaching that occurred towards the end of the lessons. It should, of course, have a been arranged that when it was time for her to ring the bell she could just slip out and not have to seek permission and that the other pupils would take turns in making notes for her so she didn't miss out, but that never happened. (These days a parent or guardian would 'go up the school' to 'sort things out', but that wouldn't have happened in those days as teachers were so revered.)

My mother loved her high school and said what a good grounding the teaching gave her for the rest of her life. When she died, I found an old group, black and white photo of her with her classmates; it was teeny weeny and she had squeezed all of their names on the back. She never said that it was difficult to fit in, but I think she may indeed have feared some jealousy from the local girls at least at first (it was an all girls school) as she was only there two minutes before being made 'head girl'.

And it was, indeed, a traumatic time for my mother during the war. She was evacuated to stay with her uncle (her mother's brother) and his wife, but they weren't nice to her and didn't care for her properly. Food was on ration and at meal times they would give good portions of food to their son (my mother's first cousin who was several younger than her) and give her scraps by comparison and her clothes weren't washed very often either. She was eventually "saved" as she put it, by her auntie (her mother's younger sister) who moved to the area to work in a munitions factory for the war effort (think of a 4ft 11ins 'Rosie the Riveter'). She brought my mother food, took her clothes away to her lodgings to wash them and knitted her cardigans and thick socks to keep her warm (said auntie used her own precious ration coupons for the food and the wool); before then, my mother had been suffering itchy chilblains all over on her toes because she was so cold as in those days there wasn't any central heating, only coal fires and as coal was also rationed, there'd only be one fire lit and often no fire at all. The only time I ever heard my mother cry was when her kind auntie died.

Yes, it is very interesting and, of course, with dementia (I believe my mother had Alzheimer's but she refused to go for brain scans, so I don't know for sure) they often revert to their childhood. My mother kept saying "I want to go home", when she was actually living at her house that she'd lived in for over 30 years, but it turned out that she was wanting to go back to her parents' house where she'd lived before the war and then after the war.

Gosh, I have gone on; I should write a novel!

 

Now your gonna make me gat all metaphysical on you guys.
My Mom was a 'high functioning' Dementia sufferer her last few years when I was watching her. If you came and spoke to her at lunch time, you wouldn't think she was anything less than lucid...yet she didn't remember anything by dinner time . She had 'sundowners' though I only learned that term in her last few months. She also began telling me about her childhood, which in 89 years had never been talked about a lot.

"I want to go home"... She like many Dementia sufferers began to say that the closer she got to the end. I didn't get a lot of instruction, so I mistakenly dealt with her straight and would say "THIS is your Home" which of course starts a circular conversation.

On a Thursday she had tried to 'run away' again and I intercepted her. I asked her where she thought she was going? "I am going home to see my family this weekend" (she never knew I was her son)
She passed away that Sunday/Monday morning.

This whole Method of recovery is about getting home. We are sort of lost..and our real Home is with God, or with the truth. What other home could these 'childlike' people be talking about? Whenever I have gotten over a tickle, I feel like i am 'Home' again. I have been trying to get home my whole life...it is not a geographical place, but a powerful spiritual connection.

Using the tools we have here is about a spiritual connection. You can use whatever words you choose, but what else would you call a self imposed crisis that sets you in pursuit of a deeper truth?

We all want to go home

 

@Baseball65 - this took my breath away - I read it and it immediately hit me in my gut and heart! I was only thinking yesterday (after doing some more '5 Why-ing') that '5 Why-ing' is so good because it's a simple but great tool for drilling down and finding out and recognising the truth... you're absolutely right, it's all about finding the truth; we all want and need to go home to the truth.

 

Yes! You should! Such vivid and poignant stories. Your mother went through a lot.

 

this must have been so hard and sad!

Yes, we are lost and heading home. I agree the older sweet souls can feel it calling.

And for this, TMS is a gift. I’ve noticed everyone on here who has healed mention some sort of spiritual growth important to them. It’s like the experience makes you more evolved. For me, I’ve grown very close to God. Closer than I ever have been, and I’ve believed all my life. So it’s all amazing to me. And it’s worth more than gold.

 

Ha, ha, thanks Diana, maybe I will!

 

Since everyone is telling mother end of life stories: My mom had MS and was hospitalized at the end for many months. She hadn’t spoken in years. But toward the end she kept saying over and over “I know it’s true. I know it’s true.” She actually had very strong faith in God and loved church, took me every Sunday (despite the horrible things I’ve said about her. I love her so much for this. It kept me going through all my hard times.) At any rate, I’ve often wondered if angels or someone from heaven was talking to her at the end and she was saying, “I know it’s true.”

As far as my recovery, I also like to picture she is praying for me from heaven. I know I am praying every day that any damage I did to my kids will be removed. It’s a lot of pain for a mother. And I know she has probably suffered from the regrets.

 

I've always thought guilt, and shame, are far more damaging than rage.

 

Agreed, at least insofar as conscious emotions go.

I'm wondering sometimes though whether or not the "hidden rage" I feel is towards the things I feel guilt/shame for. This is something I've only been considering since @Baseball65 posted here yesterday... Like basically, my shame and guilt are really a mask for the inner tantrum-throwing kid going "why SHOULD I feel bad? Who says!? Why can't I get and do what I want, when I want?" while the more grown up parts feel shame/guilt on a conscious level. Idk what to do with it though.

 

ISTDP agrees that anger is a very natural human/animal aggressive behavioral impulse. It is a genetically hardwired product of evolution because our long ago prehistoric ancestors who responded with aggression (the fight part of the fight/flight response to danger) when their survival was threatened were much better at surviving long enough to produce and raise the next generation than were those of our long ago prehistoric predecessors who were not able to respond to respond with aggression when their survival was threatened. In evolution theory, this is called natural selection.

ISTDP also agrees that the exact thing we need to "get to" (i.e. need to unrepress and become aware of) is the aggressive behavioral impulse. ISTDP also agrees that the best recovery includes release of the aggressive impulse by vivid portrayal of it, e.g., crushing mother’s skull.

So far, Booble, I don’t see any conflict between you and ISTDP.

However, I do see a conflict between you and--surprise--Sarno. Not just you but many commenters on this forum, which I one reason why I seldom comment here anymore.

In Healing Back Pain, Sarno wrote the following about his tendency to repress his own anger: “I do that a lot. I have learned that heartburn means that I’m angry about something and don’t know it. So I think about what might be causing the condition, and when I come up with the answer the heartburn disappears.” Once he came up with the answer to who-am-I-angry-at-and-why, his heartburn stopped. Sarno said nothing about needing to release the aggressive behavioral impulse of his anger by an imaginary portrayal of how he would act on it against the object of his anger.

In The Mindbody Prescription, Sarno wrote the following under the heading Knowledge Is the Cure:

“For some people simply shifting attention from the physical to the psychological will do the trick. Others need more information how the strategy works, and still others require psychotherapy. But in every case knowledge is essential to the cure, for by making people aware of what is going on both physically and psychologically we frustrate the brain’s strategy. . . . By changing the focus of attention from the body to the psyche we render the pain useless, take away its purpose and reveal what it was trying to hide. In a small number of cases the person must actually experience the emotion, like rage or profound sadness, before the pain will cease. This always requires the help of a properly trained psychotherapist.”​

Sarno said that only a small number of people with TMS need to “actually experience the emotion.” Later, in the Foreward to a book authored by two psychologists who worked in his clinic, Sarno quantified the “small number” as being about one-quarter of his patients. So about 75% of his patients did not need to actually experience the repressed emotion. And based on what he wrote about himself in Healing Back Pain, neither did Sarno. What about the other 25 % who did? I think Sarno meant, with regard to anger, that these people needed to feel the aggressive behavioral impulse. Did he also mean that they needed to release the anger by imagining how they would act upon that impulse, as in ISTDP portrayal? Maybe, even though he did not explicitly address that as far as I am aware. But notice that these people always required the help of a properly trained psychotherapist. By “properly trained,” Sarno meant one trained in analytic therapy that focuses on uncovering repressed emotions, such as (but not limited to) ISTDP, not some other therapy model such as traditional cognitive behavioral therapy. Unfortunately, these properly trained therapists are few and therefore hard to find.

I am not sure I understand this. According to my dictionary, sublimate means to divert or modify an instinctual impulse into a culturally higher or socially more acceptable activity. I think your objection to my earlier post is that if a TMS sufferer's focus is on maintaining a solid relationship with the object of his or her anger and showing love for that person, this will distract the TMSer from uncovering his or her repressed anger as Sarno prescribes. If that is what you mean, I don’t agree. Yes, sublimation is a defense mechanism, but ISTDP portrayal is entirely different. The first step is to uncover your repressed anger. Only after that do you change focus to the rest of the complex emotions, i.e., grief, guilt and love.

Regarding the 25% who need to “experience” the aggressive impulse of their anger and who (if Sarno is right) always require the help of a properly trained therapist but have to proceed instead on a self-help basis, the best that I that I have to offer is to go back to my earlier post, review what Nat Kuhn said about ISTDP portrayal, be sure you grasp it, and try to implement it.

 

@Duggit
Thanks for all of your teachings on ISTDP. And I’m glad you are commenting! (Please don’t stay away. ) I was wondering what you did and/or still do to heal. Is it ISTDP? If so, with a trained therapist? I am doing Internal Family Systems therapy, which discovers childhood trauma and the parts of you that carried the burden of it. You then help those parts unburden through visualizing acting out the rage and feeling the guilt and shame of it all. I agree that guilt and shame are very much a part of all the repressed feelings. Nichol Sachs in her book about journaling says a good journaling session will start out expressing rage and then naturally evolve into guilt and even forgiveness. Also Shubiner’s book, Unlearn Your Pain has exercises for skull bashing then feeling the other emotions, guilt and even love for the one you are mad at. I have tried both of these techniques also: Schubiner and Sachs. I guess I’m wondering, from your experience, am I on the right track. I don’t see much movement in my symptoms yet, but I can definitely feel an emotional healing and higher internal truth taking place.

I will add that I am also heavily engaging in what Jan and Booble suggest in just writing what you’re mad about.

 

I think it’s different strokes for different folks.
ISDTP gave me a few ideas of where to be curious to look for anger, but it wasn’t really overall helpful in most ways. It increased my anxiety, was much more talk and intellectually focused.
EMDR for me (with a bit of ISF mixed in) was an amazing help. I didn’t need to know how it worked, and there was no focus on where to go first.. the mind just did what it needed to do. There wasn’t much “talk therapy” during a session and it was completely mind body focused. The “experiencing emotion” was simply awareness that there were physical sensations of emotions and to not fear them. Not all patients need this but my therapist explained all her pain patients did (She had no knowledge of Sarno) to help recognize part of what they were fearing in the moment. The idea was that the mind would freak out feeling any sensations at all. I know I can certainly do that and it’s very clear many people on this forum do.
Something Dr. Schubiner and Dr. Schecter have mentioned in interviews is that the types of pain they see “trends” and they experience patients differently than Sarno did. They also are willing to work with patients Sarno would turn down for treatment.
Sarno’s ideas also developed over time, but these new insights went unpublished but were passed on to his closest colleagues when they shared ideas. I’m interested to see Schecters’ new book on his relationship with Sarno, but I can’t find it for purchase. It gives some insight into Sarno’s later theories.

 

I could type out a novel on this subject here, but the single most helpful thing for me, in the last 2+ years that I've been dealing with my current symptoms, was simplifying it down to bare bones a la Dan Buglio, returning to full rigorous activity, finding things to focus attention away from the body. Schubiner was also helpful in personally insisting upon this. I did the emotional work thing for a year, it made no difference in my symptoms but it absolutely wrecked my mental state. Dan Buglio was the first time I'd heard someone say you don't have to do it that way, and in fact it could be counterproductive. Everyone's different, I like the practical live your life way, some people might genuinely enjoy the emotional work. At the end of the day I do think any modality that helps calm you down and presents safety is the one you go with, and different personalities are going to respond to different modalities. I mean there are plenty of people who heal TMS symptoms without ever having heard of TMS, and in fact reject psychosomatic diagnoses entirely. Perhaps all they needed was a good placebo, or they had the sort of robust personality that takes naturally to moving on with life.

 

I think this IS the Sarno way. Recognize that the pain is from hidden anger/rage trying to distract and then return to full normal life.

 

Yes but I personally don't believe it needs to be unconscious rage. I think conscious emotions/stressors/events are more than capable of producing symptoms too. Thats where Buglio differs.

 

Seems weird then that you are on a TMS/Sarno forum. (?)
Is there some reason you don't want to go find the painful stuff?
Because from the outside that sounds awfully like your TMS beast saying, "No need to look in here!"
It feels like it must be gleeful to find a good excuse to keep you out.

 

I think it's good to have users here with differing views; they're only as incompatible as you believe them to be tbh, once they're all in the mindbody space. Dan Buglio loves Sarno, preaches him all the time, is a staunch recommender of his books... He just thinks that it doesn't have to be unconscious emotion or stress that drives TMS, it can also just come from a critical mass of regular, workaday stresses too. Some people do a lot of panning for emotional gold and don't come up with much (that was some of Dan's story) but find health through the general spirit of these methods anyway.

And ultimately, considering that Sarno's approach was mainly to educate and make patients realise that powerful emotions existed in the unconscious, while his journalling (the work) mainly consisted of conscious stressors, personality traits, and past events that angered us... seems like he also delved a lot into conscious stress as a driver. They're not very opposed.

Don't get me wrong - I think everyone should give some thoughts to the unconscious emotions that may be implicit in the development of TMS. But in rereading his books recently, Sarno doesn't even spend much time on them himself. He says that we're not going to be able to discover what those subconscioues feelings are even "about" because they're buried so deep - I think he advises journaling about the topics from the three lists you make to help you realise "oh I actually DO have some anger going on I'd never considered " and then... move on with life.

But in anecdotes like that heartburn story above, he's clearly having TMS as a result of a conscious issue – he's able to pinpoint the cause, and then recognizing it as a trick of his brain, eliminates the symptom. So I think he was open to both conscious and unconscious roots. The point was moreso just that people find full belief in the diagnosis and move forward in life without undue dwelling.

 

TMS definition is pain caused by unconscious anger.
So maybe you should say "it doesn't have to be unconscious emotions or stress that drives physical symptoms."
Which I'm sure is something that we can all agree on!

EDITING to say the word unconscious might be better replaced but "unrecognized".

 

Hey thanks @tag24

And @Booble, I don't think I need to justify my presence on a TMS/Sarno forum when I am in fact here discussing TMS/Sarno and the ways in which subsequent practitioners have updated/modified/deviated from his framework (I think thats literally the topic of this thread). I'm not here telling anyone what to do or not to do (like you), in fact I made that pretty explicit in my post. I actually learned about Dan Buglio on this forum.

"Is there some reason you don't want to go find the painful stuff?"

Yeah, I did that for a year, ran out of painful stuff to find, began to suspect the obsession with forensically rooting through emotions and the past had become counterproductive. It was Dr. Schubiner who essentially demanded I get back to living my life, that radical!

"TMS definition is pain caused by unconscious anger."

You're being disingenuous, or else highly purist, TMS once had a specific definition, like 40 yrs ago, but its become something of an umbrella term, within certain circles, to describe psychosomatic symptoms. It is often used interchangeably with PPD, by people like Dr. Schubiner and the PPD association, and many of those member practitioners have moved beyond considering unconscious rage as the only possible source of pain. I'm not appealing to authority by saying that, theres plenty I disagree with with the current landscape of practitioners, ways in which I believe they have unnecessarily complicated and diluted Sarno's message by attempting to implement fancy gadgets in the name of Science, or in the opposite direction incorporating borderline new age techniques that really have nothing to do with what Sarno discussed. But regardless, this is the forum for that discussion, the other one was taken over by spam bots and they aren't much for conversation.