This article is provided by Dr. Feir Johnson of Innisfree Hypnotherapy, Niagara Falls

Article Date: October 31, 2006

Well the new wave of medical understanding is about to crash upon us – and it’s about time. Brave pioneers in the orthodox field of medicine, pioneers like John Sarno M.D., and Nancy Selfridge M.D., have been using the mind to help heal the body for some time. They’ve written books: The Mind Body Prescription, Healing Back Pain – John Sarno M.D. and Freedom from Fibromyalgia  - Nancy Selfridge M. D. and they’ve been roundly condemned by members of their medical association. But condemnation doesn’t nullify the processes they advocate!

They say that using the mind to heal the problem definitely works if 1) the client 100% commits to doing an intensive “rethink” for about 5 weeks and 2) if the client truly wants to change and will make the life changes that entails.

How does Mind Body healing work?

Well it doesn’t take a medical doctor to practice it. Actually, mind/body healing is more the domain of the hypnotherapist. Indeed both doctors actually use techniques that are used in hypnotherapy and they believe in hypnosis – but they don’t know much about it. I find that some of their techniques can be made much less onerous (and faster) by using hypnosis. The difference here is that as medical people they can use the words “healing, treat and prescribe”. As a non-medical hypnotherapist I use the word “change”.
         
So what is the premise?

The premise is deceptively simple. Both the doctors, and myself, believe that very many of our real physical and emotional issues come as camouflage from the mind. The mind seeks to keep you from resolving strong, deeply held emotions by setting up a “smoke screen”, so to speak, so you concentrate on the smoke rather than the underlying issue. So daily angers that you may have not really dealt with, are allowed to sink down and fester, are hidden (by your visible issue). Anxiety about a marriage or work becomes IBS or fibromyalgia. Childhood fear could become asthma. The list goes on. Now of course a broken leg is a broken leg – not put there by the mind – but perhaps the situation that caused that break was. That’s something to think about isn’t it?

So how does the mind “change”?

Well you, the person experiencing this, determine that from now on you will regard any unpleasant emotional or physical manifestation as only a signal that you need to look at a limiting emotion and release it. It sounds simple doesn’t it, but we’ve trained ourselves not to look. Yet those who do look and decide to release feelings from the past, or feelings about present events, have extraordinary changes for the better. It takes courage because a person could find themselves facing issues that require very real life changes to happen. And it takes commitment for 5 weeks of intense inner work and then using the tools taught if future signals arise.

It’s war!

Both Sarno and Selfridge advocate meditation, visualization, journaling, and self talk to take action against a ”smoke screen” from the mind. All of these things and many more, more powerful and refined, are used in hypnotherapy. The recordings on this site are powerful weapons my clients have used. The mind may even move its troops around. So you may find when you do the work, that the pain in your back becomes the pain in your head or knee.

If that happens the enemy just defeated itself. If that pain moves then it is produced by the mind. And you keep right on addressing the major emotions that have caused it to be produced. The only pain that doesn’t move is pain that is not produced by the mind. (And even that pain and its lessening can be addressed through hypnosis). You don’t fall for the “smoke screen” or the evasive action. You keep right on addressing the emotions behind whatever the mind throws up for camouflage. Of course the side effect is that the distraction disappears. The mind never maintains something which can’t be reinforced.
And it isn’t the whole mind doing this, either. It is the action of one very strong trance held in your subconscious. We, as complex animals, are made up of numerous trances. Sometimes it’s just necessary to empty out the filing cabinet – lose the harmful trances and keep the beneficial ones. The mind/body war is always won by us when we give it 100% commitment.

What does commitment mean?

Actually it means not “trying”, not “hoping” – but   DOING! – wholeheartedly. The practicer of mind/body healing must be deeply, deeply committed to success and willing to work the program intensively for 5 weeks.  (it takes about this time to make a habit change).

Who experiences mind/body poor health?

Well it’s not the type A personality. They have other physical issues that crop up. Actually it is the conscientious, hardworking individual. This individual may be perfectionistic in some things. This individual may take on a lot of responsibility for others and not enough for the self. Then comes bursitis, arthritis, tennis elbow, sciatica, even herniated discs. (Did you know that many people who have herniated discs never experience any pain at all?)

Non- mind/body doctors?

Too many doctors diagnose syndromes. (This is simply a collection of symptoms which has no explanation). They also make diagnoses of “living with it” or other things. Often involved are a lot of heavy drug prescriptions. In the case of what is deemed a physical issue a lot of physical therapy is advocated. In that case the mind wins the war and the distraction takes precedence. And the distraction continues, and continues………….. Why not? The distraction trance is being fed.

Because I’m not a medical doctor, just a worker with your consciousness, I certainly don’t advocate leaving your tranquillizers and painkillers behind. That would be a private decision you would make – hopefully with the help of your doctor (who genuinely wants to see you heal). I do think that people should ascertain if they are happy with the results of the “treatments” they are undergoing.

After 10 years is the condition still there? How successful has the “treatment” been?

There’s no end to the distractions the mind can give.

What Sarno and other medical pioneers in mind/body work are finding is that the mind actually can do very real physical things to produce pain in any physical area of the body. The plain fact is that most pain is resolved in 3 or 4 days – even the extreme pain of a broken femur or childbirth. Any pain just as severe as when it started needs to be looked at – migraines, back, bursitis, IBS, fibromyalgia etc. And it’s definitely known that the mind can give us fears and phobias and flashbacks and painful memories and compulsions. And drugs aren’t changing those facts. They just maintain the importance of the distraction. So why not challenge the creativity of the mind with the creativity of the mind? Fight back! Win the war!

This article is provided by Dr. Feir Johnson of Innisfree Hypnotherapy, Niagara Falls

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