Can emotional work alone heal TMS?
If you are constantly upset when you get the pain, resisting your symptoms, and fearful that these may worsen, then this emotional state is a priority to address. No amount of trauma therapy can heal you from TMS chronic pain if the principal emotions behind the symptoms have to do with the way you are negatively perceiving and vehemently rejecting the pain itself.
As we know, the idea behind Tension Myositis Syndrome is that repressed emotions and stress are responsible for causing real, physical pain in the body. Dr Sarno’s own TMS treatment involved helping his patients get to the bottom of the emotional struggles (mainly the build-up of rage) that had led to the onset of pain. Once they acknowledged these struggles, some of them experienced complete pain recovery.
But we all know that this isn’t how it always plays out. Although some people acknowledge that stress and emotional issues may have led to their painful symptoms, they might argue that these issues are now resolved, and that their current stressor today are primarily the symptoms themselves.
Others may wonder whether there is still something else, repressed and buried within their unconscious, that they haven’t managed to access.
So is emotional work alone enough to recover from TMS? This is what I’ll attempt to answer in this blog.
Strong, negative emotions definitely lead to pain onset
When it comes to the onset of psychosomatic (TMS) pain, one may confidently say that strong (often repressed) emotions are always the original cause of it. This is why it’s important to assess your personal situation at the time preceding pain onset (up to a year before), and ask yourself what had been going on.
While some might argue that what had been going on back then is now past, and that the problem or problems have been resolved, I like to encourage people to make sure that they are not still carrying around these emotions and any associated negativity in the present. What do I mean by this? Let me give you an example.
The past is only relevant insofar as it affects your present emotional state…
Someone may have developed TMS pain due to the resentment and frustration that had to do with a failing marriage. Initially, the pain may have come up before this person realised that his marriage was failing, or before he got fully aware of the amount of resentment he’d been building up towards his partner.
Two years later, this person is now divorced, but still suffers from the same symptoms. In his case, it’s worth asking how often does he still think back to his past marriage? How often does he replay certain scenes in his mind, or indulge in resentful thoughts? If this is the case, then this person would need further emotional work in order to fully express his pent-up emotions and eventually release them, rather than continue to carry them around and replay them unconsciously on a daily basis.
I always like to emphasize that the past is only significant in as much as it affects how you feel and behave in your present day life. By tuning in to how you feel about a certain past situation, you will probably know whether it is still having a significant impact on you or not. A memory may stir very unpleasant emotions but you may feel detached and disconnected from it in the present, OR, conversely, you may still be carrying around the anxiety from that memory, fearing that a similar situation will recur, and constantly indulging in thoughts of how unlucky you were to have gone through that situation. In the latter case, then the past trauma is still significant.
Watch your emotions around the pain!
When we talk about emotional work, contrary to what some may believe, this isn’t always limited to healing past emotional trauma (or even present anxiety around an issue). You may have spent thousands on therapy, reliving difficult moments and trying to heal your childhood trauma, and this may even have had its benefits on a psychological level.
However, the pain may still be present. This may be because the way you are responding to the pain is actually what’s keeping it alive.
If you are constantly upset when you get the pain, resisting your symptoms, and fearful that these may worsen, then this emotional state is a priority to address. No amount of trauma therapy can heal you from TMS chronic pain if the principal emotions behind the symptoms have to do with the way you are negatively perceiving and vehemently rejecting the pain itself.
This is the most challenging part of TMS recovery, and one of the two principal reasons why some people don’t recover (the other reason is doubt).
Why did Dr Sarno’s patients recover so fast?
This question in itself could be a subject for a separate blog. However, I’m just going to put forward my assumptions here.
First of all, those who healed the fastest were those who could identify the stressful event that triggered the onset of their pain. Having a renowned doctor like Sarno confirm that the event may well have been the only cause to their pain, they could more easily accept this. What’s more, Sarno always used to do a thorough physical examination of patients, before he diagnosed them with TMS. This helped them get rid of any doubt that there may be another cause for their pain.
Often, we are mainly scared about illness and disability. Having a doctor confirm that there are no such things responsible for your pain is enough to trigger instant mental relief in a person. The pain therefore loses is threatening factor - and as a result, people are no longer afraid of it.
So ask yourself, how threatening is the pain to you? What is the threat level that you are maintaining? How are you responding to your pain? Are you really confident in the TMS diagnosis, or do you still wonder whether there could be something else?
If you struggle with frustration, feelings of upsetness, disappointment or fear around the pain itself, there’s still a lot of work to be done. I suggest reading a TMS book, or completing our DIY 25-Day Program (available in ebook form), which will help you implement certain mindset shifts that are vital for TMS recovery.
And if you need extra help, I’m here to coach you out of pain without forcing you to revisit your worst nightmares and without focusing too much on the drama of past trauma. Instead, what I do in client sessions is simply identify the main emotions, reactions and behaviours that are presently responsible for generating chronic pain.
So in answer to the topic of this blog: Yes, emotional work alone can heal TMS pain - but you must not ignore the core emotions behind your symptoms, as these may be relevant too!