What approach does Chiron use to help people recover from Chronic Pain?
Mind Body therapy follows the understanding that our minds and bodies are inextricably linked.
There is more and more research each year that shows how many health issues are caused by negative emotions and the physical stress response caused by this (Read 'Mind Body Connections' for more information on this.)
Studies show that if we are upset or something is bothering us, then we are more likely to catch a cold or infection. They also show that it takes longer for our bodies to heal after injury or surgery if we have emotional upset.
One study was done with burns victims looking at the success of skin grafts. It was found that the graft was significantly more likely to be accepted by the body if the patient had undergone psychological therapy to help them come to terms with the traumatic burn experience.
Are you saying it's all in my head?
Absolutely NOT!
The debilitating symptoms experienced with any fatigue or pain condition are very real. They are not imagined or made up - in fact it has been proven that it is impossible to do so.
In conditions like Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, there is no pathological change to tissues such as destruction or breakdown so many physicians struggle to understand how such crippling symptoms can be produced.
In conditions such as chronic back pain, although these are commonly attributed to 'abnormalities' like bulging discs or worn joints, astonishingly there is no evidence to support this. Various studies have shown that almost 80% of people without any pain also have these 'abnormalities', making them actually quite normal and not the cause of the pain.
Although the concept of a mind body connection sounds new, evidence has been around for 40 years or so to support its mechanisms. A professor of Rehabilitation Medicine in the US, Dr John Sarno, became aware of this phenomenon in the 1970's and developed diagnostic and treatment principles for a condition he called Tension Myoneural Syndrome, or TMS for short. At this point he didn't understand why his patient's pain was linked to chronic stress, he just knew that it was. With further advances in science, it is now understood that a chronic stress response has a wide-ranging impact on every system within our bodies and is involved in many health conditions. TMS is becoming a more widely recognised condition although these days it tends to stand for The Mindbody Syndrome.
Unfortunately, few physicians are aware of TMS, the mind body approach or that chronic stress and unresolved emotions can be the cause of very real pain and fatigue. Modern medicine tends to be very reductionist, only looking at a specific area of the body and seeing illness as caused by a faulty physical body that must be mended. Hence, standard treatments are focused solely on symptom management rather than dealing with the real underlying cause of the problem.
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