bkennedy

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Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 16 total)
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  • in reply to: Hormones or what? #2766
    bkennedybkennedy
    Participant

    Thank you for sharing Beatrice.
    The hormone/symptom connection is so interesting – such an incredibly strong cultural belief to say the least.
    I wonder if the hormonal changes in one’s body (like in a menstruating woman) become a conditioned learned response when that is happening. And now for you with the ongoing cycling of your symptoms, likely those are happening from your brains’ pathways that are stuck in place. In menopause there is no longer the cycle of hormones, so at this point that couldn’t be the source of the symptoms.
    Becca

    in reply to: Offended patients #2676
    bkennedybkennedy
    Participant

    I was worried about this a bit at the beginning of when I started doing this work. I had just a few patients that got offended early on. The vast majority did not. I find that I am better at explaining it now and almost never have a patient who is offended. If they start to question and start to get offended, I completely support them and say ‘I totally get it! That is very normal. Many of my patients have the same thoughts. Our brains evolved to connect pain in the body with damage in the body. But ALL pain is created by the brain whether it’s from damage in the body or not.’ I also use examples people know well. I often use stage fright – you could get a headache, stomaches, dizziness, tingling… All those symptoms are very real, but nothing is wrong with the body. I’ve also started explaining that the danger center of the brain that filters the information coming in from the world is in the primitive side of our brain. But it’s our conscious brain that decides our behavior like running away from a tiger or not moving our broken hand. The unconscious brain DECIDES if there is danger and then has to communicate that to the conscious brain. The ONLY way it has to communicate is through our body in the form of symptoms. That is the language of the two parts of our brain. I also bring up my own experience with chronic pain as well and say even though I KNEW this was only from my brain, when I was overwhelmed with symptoms it was very hard to believe in that moment.
    Becca

    bkennedybkennedy
    Participant

    That is fantastic! Thank you for sharing so many details. Very helpful. Awesome to hear about such great results with RA! I’ve often wondered how much of that could be calmed down with MBS treatment.
    Becca

    in reply to: Mind-Body practice : Practical tips #2506
    bkennedybkennedy
    Participant

    I am also opening my own mind body medicine practice in Portland OR in October.
    I appreciate the information about Simple Practice for the EHR. I was looking at Elation which has more features for physicians.
    Howard, I am wondering how often you prescribe medicines or order tests. Would I be remiss in not having the feature available at all in the EHR?

    I would say if you see long COVID patients and the word gets out in any capacity you can, you will get patients coming to see you. I have had great success with many long COVID patients with this model. They almost all say “I wish I had learned about this sooner” (as I’m sure all patients say).

    Becca

    in reply to: Marketing materials #2407
    bkennedybkennedy
    Participant

    Hi Rachel,
    I appreciate your thoughts about the video. I have found these ideas transformative and what has been missing from the medical paradigm. I have a bit of time in the Kaiser integrative clinic where I work with patients in this capacity. Being Portland OR people are probably a bit more open to these ideas. Most patients land in my office having no idea what I do. I have been doing this work for a bit over a year. About 50% of the patients roughly are on board with the ideas and very grateful to hear about them. Maybe 20% are somewhat open to them, but they don’t entirely make sense initially. Some stay with me despite not believing it because they literally have exhausted all other options. I’d say less than 5% things its bunk and move on.
    I work in cross cover for primary care as well. In that context the numbers are a lot lower. But I still bring it up a lot and have many people very excited about it and follow up with me in the integrative clinic. In that setting, I generally toss out a nugget about the idea in general and see how they respond before I go too far. I say something like ‘there is new science that understands these symptoms in a different way through the lens of the nervous system. I work with patients with this new science. Are you interested in hearing about it?” I explain just a little bit at a time feeling their reaction out. If they are not interested at all, I follow the party line and prescribe some sort of med that probably won’t help them :). I would be happy to talk more specifically anytime. becca.kennedy@gmail.com.

    in reply to: Marketing materials #2388
    bkennedybkennedy
    Participant

    This isn’t a flyer, but I made a video that’s on youtube that is essentially my introductory class to patients to explain the science in simple terms. https://youtu.be/r5V4hRm39RI.
    And I am open to any and all suggestions about it!

    in reply to: BPPV and crystals #2386
    bkennedybkennedy
    Participant

    All very helpful! Thank you

    in reply to: Participant Introductions #2363
    bkennedybkennedy
    Participant

    It’s very nice to connect with others in this world! I am a family medicine physician in Portland Oregon. I had been curious about these ideas for years with noticing (like most other clinicians) the triad of ‘medically unexplained symptoms’, mental health diagnoses and a history of trauma. Yet sending these patients to mental health never worked. It became an intense search for me to find other answers as to how we could help patients better. Fortunately a good friend of mine from medical school said to me ‘I send my chronic pain patients to Howard Schubiner and he fixes them’. Since then, I have tried to learn everything about this that I can. I work at Kaiser Permanente and was fortunate to get a bit of clinical time in the integrative clinic there where I worked under the radar screen and just tried all of these things out. I’ve been working to try to spread the ideas throughout our system and incorporate them in a broader way. I am the lead of the long Covid specialty clinic in our region and use these techniques with long Covid patients as well.

    in reply to: Question about emotions #2335
    bkennedybkennedy
    Participant

    Thank you for that Lilia. That is a clear, thorough synopsis. Really rounded out pieces of my thinking on this! Thank you.

    in reply to: Question about emotions #2321
    bkennedybkennedy
    Participant

    Thanks Howard. I appreciate it. I would like to see the video of you doing this if you could share it (I may have seen it before, but need a refresher).

    Kindly,
    Becca

    in reply to: Live Workshop 3 #2282
    bkennedybkennedy
    Participant

    Agree with Howard and Alicia. I have some other thoughts that the anger might be from the anger toward his parents (or other caregivers) for not making him feel safe as a child. I learned this from Howard as well as Allan Abbass from ISTDP training. That often the repressed anger that is there toward our parents (Allan often specifically said mother) for not treating us as we deserved as a child is always bubbling under the surface and behind everything. When anger comes up, it is often the anger that was created because of the parents’ treatment of the child that the unconscious brain learned was too dangerous to express and therefore the person spends the rest of their lifetime repressing. Tears can often be a protective mechanism to hide the true emotion of anger. A person goes straight to tears and sadness and becomes a weak victim, rather than going to the true underlying emotion of anger which represents more power, strength and a positive core belief of worthiness. A person thinks they are very expressive of emotion because they cry a lot, but it is really covering up the anger. Particularly common in women (this was an aha moment for myself in the training). If you can do the EAET work to process and release that anger, which teaches his brain it is not dangerous to feel the emotion of anger, then it doesn’t surface so much and take over current situations. He can then feel safe because his unconscious brain is not afraid of feeling the anger. Howard taught me love, compassion and understanding is always behind the anger, which is why we don’t need to fear it. Then leaning in to the sensations of the anxiety and welcoming them through the lens of safety with PRT, rather than pushing them away can be helpful. Allan Abbass teaches that the anxiety sensations are produced because of not allowing oneself to feel the underlying emotion. If they allow themselves to feel the emotion, the anxiety will go away. Feel free to chime in Howard and Alicia. This was my take home message.

    in reply to: Psychiatric medicines #2247
    bkennedybkennedy
    Participant

    I appreciate your thoughts Alicia. I have also seen significant changes in patients, and incredibly severe symptoms can be helped by medicines.
    But I’ve more often seen patients chronically on medicines that aren’t helping and the list and amount of medicines they take gets bigger and bigger without benefit. Where I practice, the psychiatrists only focus on medicines. I have a patient with tardive dyskinesia from his antipsychotics to treat his ‘hallucinations about his neighbor trying to get him’. The psychiatrist and his therapist had no idea about his trauma history that included his neighbor bullying him throughout his teenage years and his parents not protecting him. The mental health field seems to be very afraid of bringing up and addressing trauma, but rather teaching patients to bottle it up and they need to ‘compartmentalize it’ as one ‘trauma informed’ therapist told me.
    I think you underestimate the placebo effect you have with your patients Alicia 🙂
    This is an interesting Hidden Brain about placebos – at the end is a description of a patient getting better from IBS when consciously aware she was taking a placebo. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/718227789

    in reply to: Validation, Hope and Understanding #2246
    bkennedybkennedy
    Participant

    Thank you for sharing that experience Alicia. I have also leapt in too fast with my enthusiasm and hasn’t gone well. I had a patient today who fortunately was comfortable telling me she spent her whole childhood getting gas lighted by her parents with significant abuse and the information I was saying was starting to feel like that. Validating that and understanding this information can sound strange at first, but she is in control of where she wants to go with it and it’s not dangerous, was helpful to avoid her getting upset.

    in reply to: Treating teenagers #2221
    bkennedybkennedy
    Participant

    That is very helpful Howard. Thank you. That’s sort of what I thought. Is there any difference particularly in what tools you use with teenagers? Many of them I’ve spoken with are not so interested in meditation – which I know you say, ‘then don’t meditate’, and I appreciate. I have talked to them about doing other relaxing enjoyable activities (actually suggesting to the kid above that he play video games). I have done somatic tracking and discuss expressive writing. But wondering if you’ve found there are specific differences you’ve found with working with kids versus adults. Thanks!

    in reply to: Psychiatric medicines #2178
    bkennedybkennedy
    Participant

    Yes, that is very helpful. Makes sense. Thank you!

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 16 total)