Seattle Hypnotherapist works with your doctor

There is an epidemic of mind/body illnesses in our stressed-out culture.

You are in chronic pain. You've been to your primary care physician and maybe even a specialist. You have a set of pills that you're supposed to take that give marginal or no relief yet you take them anyway because...well, you have no other option.

"If the best modern medicine says I should swallow these pills, then it's got to be the best I can do for myself. I like my doctor and trust her."

When you still get no relief, that's when it's time to do something different. Hypnotherapy has been research-proven effective for help with such issues as:

• Fibromyalgia
• Irritible Bowel Syndrome
• Depression
• High Blood Pressure
• Chronic Pain
• Surgical Prep
• Medical Fears
• Faster Healing

In different studies, doctors report that 75-80% of their patient visits are due to some form of stress. You may not even be consciously aware of some types of stress that you experience.

A handful of Western Medical doctors are just now beginning to recognize how negative emotions effect the body, most notably, Dr. John Sarno of the NY Pain Institute. He and Dr. Scott Brady of Florida hospital are pioneers in identifying how repressed negative emotions are causing everything from the list of conditions above all the way down to even such maladies as arthritis.

Dr. Sarno is an osteopath who has performed thousands of back surgeries, many without relief for the patient. He began to notice psychological patterns in these folks. He calls this: Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS).

I regularly assign my clients to read one of two books by Dr. Sarno to understand this:

Healing Back Pain and Divided Mind

It is entirely possible for you to get some relief just by reading either of these books describing TMS. In a nutshell, we are a society of professional emotion repressors. Much of these unresolved negative emotions are out of our awareness and we may never have felt them! Over time, this builds up like a volcano threatening to explode as in "going postal."

A part of our subconscious mind kicks in to "protect" us from this blow up by creating pains and bodily issues as a conscious distraction. When you release the repressed emotions and understand how all of this works, the pain no longer serves a purpose and goes away.

According to Dr. Sarno, the two most at-risk personality types for chronic pains caused by TMS are:

People Pleasers

Perfectionists 

If you are both, then you have double the chance that this applies to you when you can't get relief from regular medicine or surgery. There are other personality patterns as well.

Dr. Brady has also followed suit calling it: Autonomic Overload Syndrome

As a hypnotherapist, I work with my clients in my Seattle area (Bellevue) office under this paradigm with great success. We also work on a dual track of undoing TMS and getting pain relief NOW under the supervision of your doctor.

I will communicate with your doctor as a member of his/her patient care team and obtain a referral (permission to work with you) and/or prescription if necessary.

It is possible for you to get reimbursed by your insurance company for treatment by a hypnotherapist for medical and psychological issues. Call to ask for more information on that prior to your first appointment.

Hypnotherapy is complementary to working with your doctor.

425-457-7777

 Craig Sigl is a registered hypnotherapist with the Washington State Dept. of Health