+ Question about talking about emotional issues. – July 08
Dear John,
Thank you for your wonderful newsletters they are
so helpful. I find your wellness detective agency
idea novel and very useful.
I have a particular patient with chronic fatigue
and Fibromyalgia for 6 years. She is in a lot of
pain. The cranio sacral treatment itself is going
reasonably well but I feel she has emotional
issues that make her condition worse.
I have broached exploring the emotional causes of
her condition with her but she becomes very
defensive and then frustrated and then despairing.
Do you have any suggestions on how to approach
these issues with her.
Thanks again.
PM
Perth.
>>>MY COMMENTS:
The secret weapon of cranio sacral therapy is
silence.
Personally, I can talk a lot about the other
stuff. Why the person might be sick and so on.
I can talk about that stuff so much I wrote a book
about it for crying out loud.
But for some people talking can only make
things worse. They will usually have been sick
for some time, like your patient, and will usually
have seen quite a few other therapists. They will
have a number of theories crashing around in their
heads as to why they are ill. Ironically each new
‘helpful’ perspective you might offer can push
them deeper into confusion rather than helping to
clarify.
That’s when silence really works. Just let them
get on the table and begin your work. You can
chat with them but don’t initiate it or keep it
going. Eventually silence descends and in that
silence and the depths of your work, changes will
percolate to the surface from the depths of them.
Over time deep changes will occur and no one
will talk about it. Sometimes if you are lucky
they will tell you an insight they may have had
and when they do it will usually have a deep ring
of truth to it.