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Mind Body Therapy

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If there is a set of diseases that modern medicine seems to have passed by, it is psychosomatic disorders. Most surgeons and specialists find themselves unable to recognize or deal with them effectively, while dissatisfied patients knock door to door with little respite.

A 40-year-old Russian woman came to see me for symptoms of gas and acid that had vexed her for the last 5 years. She had visited several gastroenterologists, had undergone 4 endoscopic examinations, and had been offered similar prescriptions of proton pump inhibitors (medicines that reduce the production of acid from the stomach) sometimes with tranquilizers that had made her sleepy and had interfered with work.

I realized that I was in line for being counted as yet another doctor. Not to be clichéd, I threw her a few questions and discovered that she had been staying and working in India for 8 months, leaving her 2 children and mother in her hometown 8000 km away. Her father, who had been caring and supportive, had died a year ago. She stayed here alone in Gurgaon, often waking up with a startle at night, dreaming of her children who were miles and miles away!

She sportingly agreed to my offer of a session of Mind Body Therapy, a technique I had learnt during a workshop in Germany 20 years ago, that I had practiced in my early days in Lucknow with gratifying results.

She was soon seated comfortably in a chair, letting her taut muscles to relax and breathing smoothly. The induction of self-hypnosis was easy and quick. Soon her right index finger was responding with a mild lift , indicating that we had established the vital ideo-motor signalling link that is crucial to this form of therapy.

I kept her at a very mild level of hypnosis, just enough to enable her to delve beneath her conscious mind, and reach down to the upper layers of her unconscious mind. It is here that most of the emotions such as stress, fear and sadness reside, and it is this portion of the mid that needs cleansing and strengthening through mind body therapy after the conscious mind has been bypassed.

Within 25 minutes, Elena was looking relaxed, with her eyes closed, the furrows of her forehead straightened, fist opened and breathing jerkless. She could see through imagery, soft blue soothing juices wiping away the red angry “acidiy” ones from her stomach, while a smile gently stretched across her face in a way that had occurred very long last.

Elena woke up from a deep relaxing sleep, felt refreshed and light, and said she had never felt as light in several years.

Mind body therapy has many methods and techniques, each with its own proponents that wipe scars imprinted in the unconscious mind to allow the body functions to be smoothly restored.
As published in HT City ( Hindustan Times) dated 25 November, 2012.
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