[hschubiner]

I have treated a few people with phantom limb syndrome successfully using our model. I recall one incredible person and story: She had had 10 surgeries for ankle pain, including two fusions, two ankle replacements; all to no avail. Then she had an amputation below the knee of that leg to stop the pain, which didn’t stop the pain! I recall one time doing an EAET session with her with regard to childhood trauma and the pain disappeared on the spot.

She eventually recovered, but it took a while and she had a rocky course. Remind me to share with you a poem she wrote and a glass sculpture she created for me.
Best, Howard

[hschubiner]

Yes, many of us are using our model for long COVID. I think it is a perfect example of a mind-body condition.
There’s lot of research showing this now. I can share some papers with you on this. Also, see the website: positivelycovid.org
for more.
One good thing about our work is the the same treatments are used for all of the mind-body conditions, so it’s a combination of education, assessment, provocative testing, PRT, EAET and making changes in lives!!
Best, Howard

[hschubiner]

It’s been so interesting to watch as autism and “spectrum” disorders have risen dramatically in our society. It certainly seems that the rises in anxiety, depression, and chronic pain are all related; and are all related to stress and cultural ways that stress is manifest in our current society.

Links between FND and autism makes one wonder how much of autism or spectrum disorders might also be mind-body or neuroplastic conditions?? The same question might be applied to ADHD and how that has also risen significantly.

Best, Howard

[hschubiner]

Thanks so much, Beatrice.
We are quite a varied group with different work and interests.
Yet, we are together to explore the power of the brain!! 🙂
Best, Howard

[hschubiner]

Thanks so much for all of this information, Lilia.
I have learned SO much over these years of doing mind-body work; not only about mind-body work, but about other syndromes that are rare that I’ve never heard of, like this one!!
It’s not easy for physicians to find accurate information about rare disorders sometimes, so we can only imagine how patients feel when confronted with scary and debilitating symptoms.
I appreciate this group and this forum for us to learn together and teach each other!
Best, Howard

[hschubiner]

Thanks Karin.
There is a great deal of information from the past couple of decades on the relationship between chronic pain and the common mind-body conditions such as fibromyalgia, migraine, IBS, pelvic pain and trauma. This has been shown many times and a good resource for articles on this is PPDAssociation.org bibliography.

It’s often difficult to know if one needs to deal with these traumas in order to recover, as many people recover by having a good assessment, the powerful knowledge that they are not actually physically damaged and using the PRT techniques. But some people definitely need to address that trauma in order to recover. We don’t know who those people are until we get into treatment and see how they respond!

Best, Howard

[hschubiner]

Thanks so much, Brindi and Karin, for being here with us and introducing yourselves!!
It just warms my heart to have other professionals find this work and begin to figure out ways to practicing it.
We need all the help we can get and we need to stick together!!

We are in the process of revamping the PPDA, Psychophysiologic Disorders Association, to make it a full-fledged working professional organization that hopefully we can all belong to. We will begin to charge dues, have a fully updated roster of members, have both virtual and in-person meetings, develop special interest groups and regional chapters, etc. We will serve as a clearinghouse for trainings, workshops and lectures, and clinical programs (both online and in person).

I am very excited about all of the developments we are seeing. Last week, Alan Gordon told me that he was listening to a podcast interview done by the Australian pain expert, Lorimer Moseley (who I quote in my book and has done a ton of great work in the area of pain and the brain). Lorimer mentioned the Boulder back pain study and PRT several times! This is a shift for him. His work has centered on pain neuroscience education. However, his recent studies have not found that this approach by itself has worked to reduce pain. So, maybe he’s moving more in our direction! 😉

Best, Howards

[hschubiner]

Great questions here. We don’t really have all the answers to them though. Alicia has done some work in lower SES populations, but most of my work has been from self-referrals of folks who are already familiar with these concepts.

We did do a pilot study of this work in Las Vegas through United health care insurance company and we did find that it was more difficult to implement these ideas right away. People had a fair amount of other issues, such as life issues that often needed addressing (low economic resources, family issues, job issues, etc.). That seemed to be the most important obstacles. The amount of trauma varies greatly from person to person and we found that we could work with the trauma over time, although we usually did not address that right away.

As far as regulation type work (what a lot of people call calming the nervous system with general approaches, such as breath work, mindfulness, PVT type of work), that can certainly be useful and is often a great way to begin the work, especially when working on explaining the concepts, getting buy in, investigating for evidence of MBS over time; before going into the PRT or EAET work.

Best, Howard

[hschubiner]

Thanks so much for being here with us!! We are a group of people committed to bringing relief to those who suffer, including ourselves!! 🙂
best, Howard

[hschubiner]

I completely agree, Alicia.

The beauty of ISTDP and EAET is that it allows/encourages righteous anger to such a large (extreme?) degree in our minds, that it then allows us to really let it go and take a deep breath. Then we have room for guilt and sadness; and eventually compassion (even for the other to whatever degree makes sense for the situation).

It’s a beautiful process to observe and participate in!!

Best, Howard

[hschubiner]

I work for cormendihealth.com that was started by Dr. John Stracks, so you might want to look at our website.
Dr. Brad Fanestil in Boulder also runs a private practice, as does Dr. Matt McClanahan in Chattanooga.
Best, Howard

[hschubiner]

Thanks very much for this discussion! I really don’t know if there is a simple BPPV diagnosis, but I would guess that some people have just that: a simple vestibular issue due to a virus or some crystal problem. I’d love to know if the Epley manuveurs are more of a placebo or not. It shouldn’t be hard to study real versus placebo Epleys!!
Best, Howard

[hschubiner]

I will send a link to this video to Grace and she can send it out by email.
Best, Howard

[hschubiner]

In the Los Angeles area, he can see David Schechter, MD, who has been doing this work for many years. He also does virtual visits so he can help people who don’t live in LA.
Dr. John Stracks is in Chicago, so he’s another great person to refer people to. John also does virtual visits through Cormendihealth.com
I also do virtual visits through Cormendihealth.com

You can consult with some practitioner directories at PPDAssociation.org; tmswiki.org, and painreprocessingtherapy.com
Best, Howard

[hschubiner]

This is a very important question, Becca.

We discuss this in our EAET course, quite a bit. The purpose of releasing anger is to get to other emotions, such as guilt, sadness and compassion. Anger is not an end in itself. And, it is clearly true that some people are “good” at anger and therefore, that may not be the emotion that will help to free them.

Many people hold in a relatively low level of anger (in his case, a higher level), but are unable to let that anger go. One object of EAET is to help them to express such a high level of anger that they can then more easily let it go; and also, often feel some guilt for having the urge to physically hurt the other person.

We would like for the patient to see if they can find some amount of pity or caring or compassion for their parent who was abusive. We may ask them to “visit” their parent when they were a child to help them see that their parent was a victim in some ways.

I have a video showing me doing this with a patient, if anyone is interested.

Best, Howard

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