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I agree with Becca about long COVID – lots of demand out there for this and it seems to respond well to the mind-body approach. RE: medical records, I use Jane (jane.app) which is built for acupuncturists but is affordable and adaptable for what we do. It takes care of scheduling, appointment reminders, confidential communication, documentation, but not eRX. I find that it is perfect for my needs.
Hi Rachel I would be happy to talk with you about my experience. I started my practice about five years ago and it has been liberating ! Feel free to email me at aaron@mindfulmed.com and we can set up a time.
Hi everyone – I’ve enjoyed our discussions in class and on the forum and I’m finally getting around to introducing myself here. I’m Aaron Olden, MD working out of Rochester, NY. I trained in Internal Medicine and Palliative /Care Hospice and for the first 10 or so years of my career I worked as an inpatient palliative care/hospice consultant. I really enjoyed it but I reached a state of burnout and started having physical symptoms along with anxiety and depression. I developed a lump in my throat and thought I had a terminal illness. I worked with a great therapist and although she was not trained in EAET, it is now clear to me that my physical symptoms were a manifestation of unexpressed anger and probably other emotions as well. Part of my healing process also involved acupuncture. About five years ago I made the decision to leave hospice/palliative care and I took a course in medical acupuncture. I opened my private practice of acupuncture and mind-body medicine and first heard of Howard through a course I took on mind-body therapies here in Rochester. I use acupuncture primarily as a way to get my patients to connect with their bodies in a different way and I add in emotional awareness therapy, mindfulness, breathwork, etc… as needed. I’ve enjoyed networking with others who are doing this work and look forward to continuing to learn together! If you are interested in connecting on social media I post about my work on Instagram at @mindfulmedroc .
“The enteric nervous system relays psychological stress to intestinal inflammation.” Here is an recent article that talks about stress, steroids, and gut inflammation – I found it very interesting. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2023.05.001
Hi everyone. I have a question about regulating anxiety in the moment and how it might relate to validation.
I am working with a 40 year old married father of two young children who is dealing with an episode of depression / anxiety for the first time. He sought treatment with me for “physical symptoms of anxiety.” He has been experiencing disabling migraines. During our last session he mentioned his sensitivity to other people’s emotions and feelings and I commented to him, “you are a very caring person.” He began to get choked up and some tears came. I asked him, what is happening , what are you feeling ? And he said that it felt very unusual, unlike him, different, and I could sense his anxiety rising. So I proceeded to ground him, mentioning his feet were on the floor, he was supported by the chair, I drew attention to a deep breath that he took, and mentioned that “you are safe.” I was pleased that he experienced this wave of emotion during our session. We returned to our conversation.
After we had finished and were making plans for our next session, he told me that what I had said about him “being safe” had made him angry. I was caught off guard as we were done with our session but I felt that I needed to address this. I told him that I was really glad that he told me this (my impression is that he does not do anger— I think he has many situations in his life that make him angry but he keeps it bottled up). He seemed more interested in figuring out why that particular comment “you are safe” made him angry , to which I said that he should give some thought to before next session when we can explore this further. I will be seeing him again later this week.
I am wondering what reactions people may have to this story and whether there might have been a better way to regulate my patient’s anxiety in the moment. I suspect that he did not feel that he was under threat and my comment about his safety may have suggested that he was weak. At the same time, I viewed this as a success as my patient was able to experience both sadness and anger in our session and he shared these feelings with me. I wonder how I might approach future episodes of anxiety with him without evoking feelings of anger – or maybe this is part of the process? Thanks!
Hi Alicia I am really glad to hear your take on this. I, too, believe in SSRIs and other antidepressants and, as someone who suffers from depression/anxiety, I can personally attest to the fact that they work. At the same time, I wish we had a good biochemical explanation but I think what you said makes a lot of sense. Thanks for your comments!
Very interesting discussion! Here is another recent article that challenges the serotonin theory of depression. The authors of this meta analysis concluded, “there is no convincing evidence that depression is associated with, or caused by, lower serotonin concentrations or activity… Most studies found no evidence of reduced serotonin activity in people with depression compared to people without. High quality, well-powered genetic studies effectively exclude an association between genotypes related to the serotonin system and depression, including a proposed interaction with stress.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0#Sec13