Physical Pain Relief

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Repairs in the Nervous
System Bring Pain Relief

You may be experiencing some conflict as you clicked on this page. Perhaps you felt skeptical or mistrustful that a psychotherapist would have something of value to offer someone with physical pain. You also may have felt some curiosity and hope because you’ve struggled with persistent pain. You still seek relief. Whether you suffer from migraines, post-surgery or accident-related pain, fibromyalgia, or other types of pain, you want to understand it better, tolerate it, or have it go away.

First, let’s acknowledge together that all physical pain should be investigated with your physician. Once we ensure that it is safe for you to proceed with other somatic approaches, we begin to look at places where, neurologically, there may be a coupling between unresolved trauma or destructive thought patterns and the pain site. We work, quite literally, to rebuild the nervous system. I often use touch, employing Somatic Experiencing techniques to integrate the mind, the pain sight, and awareness. In other instances, it is sufficient to examine sources of stress in your life; repetitive, destructive patterns of thinking; or implicit, internalized wounding from childhood or society.

One of the leading researchers and physician experts on the mind and body connection says:
“Cognitive behavioral therapies and mindfulness-based practices have also been shown to have a positive impact on pain, joint inflammation, physical disability and depression.”
– Dr Bessel van der Kolk

While it is interesting that science and medicine provide some ways for us to know things about how our bodies function, we find this knowledge–that our bodies are capable of healing–in almost every area of human learning, including philosophy, religion and even politics. Winston Churchill encouraged his people with the insight that “what lies behind us and what lies before are small matters compared to what lies within us.”

The journey to well-being is sometimes uphill. Yet, we know that we already contain the capacity to heal. Sometimes we just need a shoulder to lean on and a voice that assures us: “This too shall pass.” It brings me joy to celebrate the next pain-free step in the road with you. I wait to hear your voice, like the poet, e.e. cummings, saying:
“I imagine that yes is the only living thing.”

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I am the bridge to my own future; the connection to my own best experiences. - Judy Rintoul
I am the bridge to my own future; the connection to my own best experiences.
– Judy Rintoul

Happiness is the highest form of health. - Dalai Lama
Happiness is the highest form of health.
– Dalai Lama

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It is very helpful to realize that the emotions we have, the negativity and the positivity, are exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, fully alive. - Pema Chodron
It is very helpful to realize that the emotions we have, the negativity and the positivity, are exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, fully alive.
– Pema Chodron

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And I shall watch the ferry boats, and they'll get high, on a bluer ocean against tomorrow’s sky, and I will never grow so old again, and I will walk and talk, in gardens all wet with rain… - Van Morrison
And I shall watch the ferry boats, and they’ll get high, on a bluer ocean against tomorrow’s sky, and I will never grow so old again, and I will walk and talk, in gardens all wet with rain…
– Van Morrison

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The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain. - Karl Marx
The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain.
– Karl Marx

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