Reversing Chronic Physical Symptoms with the Help of the Mind
The Role of Stress Reduction, Psychotherapy, and Personal Development
Celebration of a milestone presentation
We immediately cleared out the content of our online community last Sunday to discuss this video with the group of people with Parkinson’s where we discuss the exact same things.
We were very excited to see the above recent TEDx talk, because it indicates that mainstream neurology and neuroscience is beginning to “sing from the same hymn sheet” and support what we have been telling for some time.
Below are our notes on the most salient and important, to us, points this speaker, a neurologist and neuroscience, covers in her talk.
In her clinics, a neurologist, a psychologist, and a physiotherapist are all in the same room with the patient at the same time. This team comes up with holistic, bespoke solutions.
She uses an analogy for the Nervous System [one we don’t particular like or agree with, as it is dehumanizing, and humans are nothing like machines, but we will go with it here]:
hardware, structure - our brains, our nerves, our spinal cord;
software - programs which run on them;
the software can modify the symptom experience;
structural disease shows up on scans and blood tests, but many chronic diseases do not;
symptoms are still very real, not imaginary, not "all in your head", but the main problem can be in the software, rather than structural.
Twenty years ago, her PhD was on the placebo effect. She worked with patients with Parkinson’s, and made a proper placebo experiment. She told people that a placebo was a medication and brain scans showed changes in the brain, e.g. a man in a wheelchair who was given a placebo was able to get off the bed and walk. She concluded that the mind, conscious thoughts, expectations, and beliefs, were able to alter their neurochemistry and also their experience of symptoms.
“Integrates mind, brain, and body… open up new avenues for treatment, better patient experiences, more efficient healthcare systems... healthcare becomes healing, the whole person is seen…”
The video shows a number of profound “before and after” videos of real patients, including:
25 year old woman with uncontrollable movements of her body, could not walk - resurrected mindful ballet exercises from childhood, combined with physiotherapy, and she re-learned how to walk.
61 year old with a disabling tremor in the right side of body after an accident - combining anti-anxiety strategies such as breathing, meditation, together with physiotherapy was able to re-learn smooth movement.
32 year old man who had hyper-extended back when walking - taught his brain to shift the spotlight of attention away from the body onto activities outside the body he enjoyed, relearned to walk straight.
21-year-old woman with uncontrollable severe ballistic movements of the limbs, wheelchair-bound - taught her to reset her nervous system, to regulate how activated it was through breathing, visualization, and mindfulness practices, and was able to walk and even run again.
“New therapies combining psychotherapy and physiotherapy, patients got better, got better faster, got better for longer.”
The greatest predictor of people who do best are people who are ready to change, and ready to engage in rehabilitation [convalescence].
Barriers to uptake: hard to study in clinical trials designed for drug testing, the stigma of mental health, overvalued technology and tests, and undervalue people.
Disease doesn't occur on a blank slate, it happens in a person with a lifetime of experiences, values, beliefs, and expectations which combine.
Stop doing treatment to people, but instead work with them.
Join a waiting list for our online offerings which are based on similar concepts to the above successful strategies:
Read Lilian’s book, which applies these types of ideas to Parkinson’s:
Very interesting timing with your post, Gary. I recently began using my mind and intention to finish healing an injury I sustained falling on my left side onto the ground (grass).
The healing notion came from someone who said that the fall energetically hyperextended my pelvis to the right side of my body. I focused on bringing that energy back into place. Ever since then, I have had few issues with pain/discomfort. When I do, I use the same procedure to literally move the energy back into place.
It has had profound results.
We have, over many generations, been deceived by evildoers into minimizing our Creator-given powers, which begin in the mind. Take back our power, let the healing begin.
While it seems a tangent, I'd honestly like to hear more honest discussion of the process of healing when there is past abuse of some sort from someone in the healing position.
I mention this because these are usually the people that are labeled the most "resistant" to healing. It could be in the form of medical gaslighting or direct iatrogenic harm, or it could be in the form of abuse of power such as is often the case in psychiatric inpatient care.
It's well known that when the person who is supposed to help causes more harm, this creates a double bind and often a freeze or dissociative response. The high internal stress of this situation is often a primary factor in long term chronic conditions. Simply telling someone to get help without acknowledging that help is associated with harm can itself create more harm, because the implication is that someone should not be feeling what they're feeling.
I myself moderate a forum for survivors of therapeutic abuse and I'll have to say the stories I've heard are atrocious. Abuse of power is not uncommon. A friend of mine on the certification board of my state says that according to her estimates, at least 50% of people graduating from a counseling program should never be therapists due to personality disorders. But there is simply no filter. It's a little different for the medical profession, but abuse of power is rarely talked about.
Autonomy and trust in ones support is such an integral factor in health. I can't help but hypothesize that the betrayal of trust of the administrative class in health departments has a significant effect of the health of the nation even without direct iatrogenic harm.
That said, I very much appreciate your effort and open mindedness in the topic. It's just that Ted talks mainly focus on the inspirational factors, leaving some real practicalities behind.