TMS is know as Tension Myocitis Syndrome or Mindbody syndrome, a term first coined by Dr John Sarno, a medical doctor practicing in America in the 1970s, who pioneered work in the field of psychogenic pain or, as its come to be known, mind-body pain. His method to help cure chronic pain has helped thousands over the years.
In his practice, he was struck by an observation he made of his patients suffering with chronic back pain, he noticed that their pain levels didn’t necessarily correlate to their structural anomalies. Some patients who were shown to have herniated discs for instance, would display no pain symptoms or recover within a few weeks of diagnosis whereas others would become incapacitated for years.
Puzzling over this, he observed an unexpected commonality in the pain sufferers. Those who suffered more pain had similar personality types. They were largely perfectionistic, stoic people with low self-esteem, who put the needs of others before their own and needed to be liked. They had a strong need to adhere to the conventional norms of the time and they often suffered from fear and anxiety. Also in the cohort were the over-reactors, those who expressed anger and aggression in situations where it was not warranted, and dependency types who preferred others to take the lead in life.
These traits, though seemingly incongruent, are all reactions to social conditioning. As children, society teaches us not to express our anger and that if we do so, we are bad. Our fears are often denied and we are told there is nothing to be afraid of, which denies our reality as little ones. Our tears are not always met with kindness or understanding, so we learn to dry our eyes and soldier on. In order to survive we learn how to repress the negative feelings, which might draw criticism or worse from our caregivers and society at large. We are fine or we are grand when asked how we are. It doesn’t mean we have mastered these negative emotions as adults, or that these feelings have simply vanished, we have just developed coping mechanisms.
Strong negative emotions have intensity and are seen as threatening to the safety of the collective, we are conditioned to keep the peace in the herd. And since we’ve been suppressing or stuffing them down since childhood, giving ourselves up for others, we may not even be aware of harbouring feelings such as anger, fear or jealousy. Instead they get shunted off to the vast reservoir of the unconscious, where they lie dormant until a life event or crisis triggers them and the dam threatens to burst. This potentially life-threatening flood of negative emotion, the ferocity of which, our primitive brain believes, has the potential to ostracise us from the tribe; so to prevent such a threat the brain creates pain, which Sarno refers to as distraction pain. For him, it is buried negative emotions, principally rage, that are at the root of most chronic pain. Such is the price of civilisation.
How do you know if your pain is in fact as a result of TMS? Here are a few considerations as there are identifiable characteristics to mind-body pain:
• Do you have multiple, usually unrelated chronic conditions that are of unknown origin?…for instance sinus, allergies, heartburn, IBS or fibromyalgia to name but a few.
• Do you have pain that moves from one place to another on a regular basis?
• Are you constantly battling different chronic conditions?
• Does the pain come and go based on life stressors?
• Has the pain been going on for years?
• Do you have pain or symptoms recurring in the location of an old injury or previous surgery?
And consider that we add to our reservoir of buried anger or fear on a daily basis, through our own internal conflicts around striving to be good or better, more successful or kinder; and through the stresses and strains of the obligations we have to fulfil in our work and relationships to please others or to simply get the job done. How many times have you felt resentment or anger around work or family commitments and have gritted your teeth and pushed on? If we add stored anger, fear and rage from childhood to this picture, we begin to understand just how much we are in fact holding onto.
These patterns of repression initiated in childhood mean we are well programmed by the time we are adults. Is it any wonder that chronic pain is now at epidemic levels, when we consider the unconscious forces at work within us, in an increasingly demanding, increasingly conditioned society.
What Sarno proposed was to look at the mind as the cause for the pain and not try to find a cure for the effect (the pain in the body). Anyone who has been bedevilled with chronic pain will know the desperation of seeking a cure, but according to Sarno searching for a cure outside ourselves either through medication, surgical intervention or physical therapies will at best only offer temporary relief.
It is a radical theory that is not without its controversy and can tend to elicit an outraged or at best dismissive response from anyone in the throes of suffering. But yet, people treated for TMS consistently get better, which cannot be said for many who receive conventional treatment. Many thousands now have been cured of their issues through his technique.
He advocated treating the pain as a distraction and trusting in the health and soundness of the body despite the pain alert signals coming from the brain. Instead, be curious about what emotion you might be feeling, a surprisingly challenging feat, particularly as negative emotions are usually repressed and often you might feel nothing. Practice is required. Once you’ve identified the feeling, feel it and don’t act it, dismiss it or tell yourself a story about it. This is not the feeling you might have about your pain by the way, it is the feeling that is underneath the pain, remember the pain is what’s in the way, the pain is the distraction. It is an incremental process of letting the steam out of our pressure cooker little by little. Journalling helps here considerably, but even to just acknowledge what’s here with your breath can give you ease. It is a daily and continuous practice, but with continuous practice, becoming pain free can become your reality.
This method is not for the faint-hearted, nor is it in step with the pull of society today, which tells us all happiness, health and indeed a cure, lies outside us and is to be sought externally.
‘The Mindbody Connection’ by John Sarno available in print or as an audible book is a good place to start if your curiosity has been piqued, particularly if you’ve battled with chronic health issues for years to no avail. Otherwise, there are many free online resources worth checking out such as Dan Buglio ‘s channel ‘Pain Free You’ on YouTube. These resources pass on tools and techniques to help free you from the despair of being trapped in chronic pain.
Gift vouchers now available at West Cork Pilates. Vouchers can be redeemed for individual sessions and mat classes. The gift of health this Christmas. Contact Lorraine (086 3670478, lorrainedufficey@gmail.com)’
