By Paul Brundtland

Guest Writer for Wake Up World

Countless people who have suffered from years of pain, discomfort, and limited physical ability have found complete healing through mind/body re-education. Many of these people have seen resolution in remarkably short periods of time.

Medical doctors such as John E. Sarno (author of Healing Back Pain, The Mindbody Prescription, and The Divided Mind) and Lissa Rankin (author of Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof You Can Heal Yourself, and The Fear Cure) have documented case upon case of people who have healed various illnesses through re-education and psychologically-based means. Norman Cousins, former Adjunct Professor of Medical Humanities for the School of Medicine at the University of California, chronicled his own healing from a rare and deadly form of arthritis without the use of drugs in his book Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient: Reflections on Healing. Further, people such as Fred Amir (author of Rapid Recovery from Back and Neck Pain) have detailed their personal journeys from illness to health, again through applying the correct information to the way they live and think.

In 2004 I myself recovered from debilitating back pain which had left me walking slowly with a cane and not being able to sit for more than 5 minutes. Now I can easily take a 900 minute flight from Tokyo to Toronto. My pain had lasted years and was resolved within weeks.

Now, 10 years after my own healing, it’s time I shared some of what I have learned and experienced first-hand.

Illnesses Caused by the Mind

Many of us are aware that stress is related to several disorders such as gastrointestinal problems, headaches and heart disease. This is a widely accepted example of the relationship between the mind and the proper or improper functioning of the body. Another basic example is getting flushed when embarrassed or sweating when we are nervous. It is clear that these harmless temporary effects are caused by the mind.

The “nocebo effect” refers to the mind’s ability to cause more harmful physical disorders. Dr. Bernie Siegel cites a finding in his book Love Medicine and Miracles concerning patients in an experimental control group for a new chemotherapy drug. It is commonly known that hair loss is a side effect of chemotherapy. This group was only given harmless saline, but thought they may have been given chemotherapy. 30 percent of this group lost their hair. Yes, the mind can cause extreme physical changes in the body.

Why the Mind Creates Physical Symptoms

The above example of the nocebo effect can easily be traced back to the conscious belief that chemotherapy causes hair loss. We consciously believe something about the body and it happens. This can be said about the conditioning involved in allergies and some forms of chronic pain. We believe something causes our condition and it does!

Concerning the onset of allergies and pain not directly linked to a physical event, several authors on the subject of mindbody disorders have mentioned that the mind creates physical symptoms to distract from psychological issues. In the book Heal Your Body, Louise Hay writes “I’ve learned that there are really just two mental patterns that contribute to dis-ease: fear and anger“. It is important to note that these often do not refer to conscious fear and anger, but  to deeply repressed unconscious versions.

Dr. John Sarno often speaks of profound rage. This deep-seated rage is seen by the subject as too dangerous to be brought into the conscious mind. Borrowing the term from Freud, Sarno concludes that the ego refuses to accept this emotion and creates distractions in the form of physical pain, compulsive behaviour and less threatening emotions. Some examples of this could be irritability, impatience, conscious anger or depression as emotional distractions. In working with my clients I have seen compulsive eating connected clearly. Just a few in the seemingly endless list of possible physical distractions include back and shoulder pain, allergies, eczema, tinnitus, prostate problems etc.

Perfectionists and Good People are Especially at Risk

Both Sarno and Freud refer to the battle between our basic, primitive self, only concerned with pleasure and fulfillment of desires and our more socially acceptable self which strives for perfection and advancement, or even just to be “good people” (the “id” versus the “ego” as termed by Freud). At one level we want to serve and be seen favorably by others whereas at another basic level, the selfish child in us just wants whatever s/he wants, no questions asked. This is seen to be a great producer of unconscious rage. We may strive to be good parents or partners but deep down just want to lie around, be fed our favorite food and receive massages! The child in us can have “temper tantrums” at an unconscious level and instead of allowing them into our conscious mind, our “well-adjusted” adult self unconsciously decides it is unacceptable to feel the rage. These intense feelings have to come out somehow, so they are redirected to the mind in the form of other less-threatening conscious emotions or to the body as physical symptoms.

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Previous articles by Paul Brundtland:

• Breakups, Backaches, The Beatles, Buddha and the Brain
• Waking? Insomnia? Simple Tips to Help You Fall Back to Sleep
• Perfectionism and Fear: The Emotion Behind Getting it Just Right

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