The Mind Body Connection

This is an excerpt taken from myshrink.com by Dr Suzanne La Combe:

In the world of brain research it has not been clinically helpful to distinguish mind from body for a long time. It's perhaps the most important implication of recent neuroscience research - you cannot understand or treat either one in isolation. This intimate relationship between the biological and the mental/emotional aspects of our being has been coined "the mind-body connection". 

When you have a thought, feel an emotion or take action on an impulse, your body responds. The emotional, neurological, glandular and immune systems are all wired together, speaking the same chemical language. Whatever happens in one system affects all others.

For the most part we are unaware of the influence that the mind has over the body, since its impact is overwhelmingly non-conscious. 

When we have a stimulating thought or feeling ("Oh my gosh, I forgot to turn off the stove!") neurochemicals are released into the bloodstream, changing the neurochemistry of the body. 

When habits in thinking and feeling are rigid and unchanging, the same hormonal responses are induced repeatedly in the body. These are ultimately driven into inflexible, uncomfortable states of "dis-ease". 

When you feel stressed, anxious or upset, the body tells you something isn't right. You don't have to be a doctor to know that high blood pressure or stomach ulcers frequently develop following a particularly stressful event, such as the loss of a loved one. 

In fact, when your emotional health is poor you may experience all sorts of physical complaints, such as back or chest pain, extreme fatigue, insomnia, palpitations, sweating, weight gain or loss. Read on

Tapping for frozen feelings

Even though this . . . is frozen, I now allow it to move in, through and out

Even though I couldn’t fully take in . . . I’m tapping for the courage to allow it to move in, through and out

Even though this . . . has not moved in a long time, I am now tapping to allow it to move in, through and out

Make sure to customise the phrases to suit you. EFT short cut diagram and procedure.

TH This frozen energy

EB In my gut (or anywhere else you feel it)

SE It feels hard

UE And dense

UN Because it hasn’t moved in a long time

UC It couldn’t move

CB I didn’t want it in the first place

UA I couldn’t digest it

TH So it got stuck

EB Halfway in, halfway out

SE I just couldn’t take it all in

UE So I froze

UN And that’s okay

UC I did my best

CB I just didn’t know what to do

UA Or feel

TH But now I do

EB Well at least I think I do

SE I can help this frozen energy move

UE With my intention

UN Energy moves naturally

UC When we let it

CB I now choose to let this energy do what it wants to do

UA And go where it wants to go

TH I feel a little afraid

EB Of what could happen

SE What if I feel overwhelmed?

UE Like I have in the past?

UN I can tap for the courage

UC To allow this energy to move

CB And to feel all the sensations

UA As it starts to move

TH And to know that I’ll be okay

EB More than okay

SE I choose to feel peace

UE I choose to feel gratitude

UN For all this

UC For the person I am

CB I choose to feel kindness

UA For me

The Nuts and Bolts of Sobriety

This is a post by Arthur Janov who writes a really great blog on what the true core issues behind various different symptoms are.

I kid you not when I say that the august journal Scientific American Mind, publishes some strange articles. This one, the “Nuts and Bolts of Emotional Sobriety” by Herbert Wray (March 2012), is about being sober. Persons must attain “emotional sobriety” before they get too far along; and that means—hold on!—you must learn to regulate negative feelings that can lead to discomfort, craving and ultimate relapse. The maxim is “Don’t think and don’t drink.” 

What the article goes on to say is that this is a lifelong effort and requires new ways of thinking. There are so many loose intervening variables involved, so many ill-defined notions that I hardly know where to start, except that this appears in an important scientific journal. But if we suss out the hidden text it is “thinking will make you well”. Oh yes, that is not exactly what they are saying but it really is. You need a new way of thinking and where does that come from? And by the way, where does thinking come from, in any case? Thinking is not so deep, not deep enough to change deeply embedded feelings that drive cravings. You can only agree with that notion if you do not understand where addiction comes from, and it is not, not, not from faulty logic, where you just need to change your attitudes, and voila. Ideas and attitudes are late arrivals in the brain and are never strong enough to combat feelings, instincts and sensations, which preceded them by millions of years in evolution. There was this life going on a long time before ideas came along. This is true in antiquity and in our personal development. And we hurt and imprint that hurt long before we have ideas to describe it. Read on

ACUPOINT STIMULATION IN TREATING PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS: EVIDENCE OF EFFICACY

The following is an excerpt of an article by David Feinstein published in 2012 in Review of General Psychology.

Energy psychology is a clinical and self-help modality that combines verbal and physical procedures for effecting therapeutic change. While utilizing established clinical methods such as exposure and cognitive restructuring, the approach also incorporates concepts and techniques from non-Western healing systems. Its most frequently utilized protocols combine the stimulation of acupuncture points (by tapping on, holding, or massaging them) with the mental activation of a targeted psychological issue. Energy psychology has been controversial, in part due to its reliance on explanatory mechanisms that are outside of conventional clinical frameworks and in part because of claims by its early proponents—without adequate research support—of extraordinary speed and power in attaining positive clinical outcomes. This paper revisits some of the field’s early claims, as well as current practices, and assesses them in the context of existing evidence. A literature search identified 51 peer-reviewed papers that report or investigate clinical outcomes following the tapping of acupuncture points to address psychological issues. The 18 randomized controlled trials in this sample were critically evaluated for design quality, leading to the conclusion that they consistently demonstrated strong effect sizes and other positive statistical results that far exceed chance after relatively few treatment sessions. Criteria for evidence-based treatments proposed by Division 12 of the American Psychological Association were also applied and found to be met for a number of conditions, including PTSD and depression. Neurological mechanisms that may be involved in these surprisingly strong findings are also considered. Read on