Endlessly seeking recovery can be a counterproductive unconscious message. It can set the brain’s reticular activating system to unconsciously look for confirmation of a need for recovery- for lack, for what’s missing, for not ‘being there yet’. It keeps us focused on what is ‘wrong’ instead of building what is right with us, building health, and building resilience.
It also adds to fear when we are constantly taking things, having appointments, outsourcing our recovery, taking away our god given ability to work with our own biology and psychology to bring more equanimity, peace, and resilience into our system . This does not mean don’t get support! It means fear based cycles have to be spotted and healed. Over many years and many hundreds of clients, here are some of the most unhelpful treatments I see people get stuck doing, that leads to more fear, learned helplessness, and symptom cycles
The top offender - Medical intuitives, and medical mediums
These outsource your recovery and put you in a passive position where someone will tell you why you have symptoms for example EMF's, virus's, parasites etc. This leads to safety behaviours (controlling things to try and feel safe; like EMF's, strict diets, lots of supplements, treatments) and also avoidance of living because we believe these 'things' they are telling us about are dangerous, and our fear grows. Safety behaviours bring short term relief, but ramp up fear longer term because we are teaching the brain that these 'things' are unsafe, and to react to them more in the future. This cycle builds over reliance, learned helplessness, and more anxiety.
What these people do may work for a while, because of the placebo effect. When we believe they have found ‘the thing’ our brain can turn symptoms off for a while. Symptoms will always come back again when they are caused by the nervous system in the first place. People must have enough psychoeducation to understand and begin to believe that symptoms coming back means they are neural symptoms, not symptoms due to the environment.
The people I see struggle the most are the ones who run to these people when they are triggered, instead of learning to build safety and resilience in sustainable ways. Constantly running to someone like this also feeds neuroticism and an external locus of control (thinking things outside of you are the primary factor impacting your life). Both of these add to poor mental and physical health outcomes.
Remote Healers That Feed Ideology About Toxins, Pathogens, environmental stressors
These people have machines that work with people’s bodies remotely and find virus’s, pathogens, toxins. Is this a good idea when you are chronically anxious everytime you are triggered by a sensation, an emotion, something in your life? No. Will it likely make you more neurotic and externally focused on triggers? Yes
If this actually worked for these conditions, people would get better from it. They do not. The placebo effect will make it work for a while sometimes, and then symptoms will come back. If it actually worked - symptoms would go and resolve. If this happens - great. If not - you’re in a cycle. I am not against energy work at all, we are made of energy after all. But in these conditions, and when people attribute their symptoms to triggers outside of them and give their influence to others, I see the make things worse
Diets that cut out entire food groups
Short term elimination diets are fine. Cutting out entire food groups is not sustainable physically or emotionally. People with these conditions often feel chronically fearful and unsafe. Diet is an easy way to feel control in order to try and feel safer, or to manage internal distress from emotions or attachment distress/trauma.
If someone is chronically under nourishing themselves nutritionally, then they will be undernourished emotionally, or/and relationally. Our relationship with food is a mirror of our relationship with ourselves, our emotions, and our needs. Your body may do better eating a certain way. So this is not about the need to eat absolutely everything. It is ensuring you understand that the diets based on deprivation or/and fear will always make us more sick longer term because they feed our hypervigilance.
Constant alternative/wellness treatments and appointments
This does not mean do not support your body. Periodic blood tests, check ups, hormone support etc. But endless alternative treatments for these conditions keeps us stuck. Big Wellness often scares people into shunning needed support in favour of a solely alternative model where they have multiple different practitioners who they go to to ‘fix’ what ails them.
The more we do that with neural conditions, the more the brain gets the message that we are not safe, that something is ‘wrong’, there is something to get away from, and we get stuck in cycles of anxiety and safety behaviours. It also stops us from living again, which is the best medicine to teach our system that we are safe. It can be a form of avoidance - as if we keep ‘healing’ we don’t have to go back to life.
Muscle Testing
There is a form of muscle testing called ART created by a Dr called Dr Klinghardt. This will test people with these chronic conditions for all kinds of toxins and issues, and then muscle test them for what treatment to use. Is the body capable of giving remarkable feedback? Of course. But ART is not evidence based to be used diagnostically, and should not be used with highly anxious patients (which this patient group are, because their brain is constantly scanning for and finding danger - it is not a personality failing, it is neurological). It feeds that anxiety
Dr Klinghardt charges thousands per week to vulnerable patients to kill lyme, mold, detox metals, kill parasites. His patients get stuck in a cycle of ill health and dependence and fear. I do not see his patients get better. I went to his clinic so have first hand experience seeing patients there and have worked successfully with many after they have run out of money or left that world. They heal when they come out of that disempowered paradigm.
Too much plant medicine or any psychedelics
Consistent high doses (not micro) of any mind altering substance where we ‘journey’ will destabilise the psyche over time. There is no need to be doing this regularly in recovery. I respect these substances and have deep reverence for their healing lineages. They have had a place in my own recovery and practice too. But how they are being used by the West is adding to our collective delusions about ‘awakening’, ‘healing’ and what ‘integration’ actually is. Continual use of any mind altering substance, even if not biologically addictive, can create dependency. People with trauma are more likely to form this psychological dependence. Using medicine instead of learning to meet life as it is, as we are, often does not end well for people with these conditions because it stops us taking the brave and necessary path of learning the skills to meet life as it is and as we are. Constant 'journeying' is recreational drug use, not 'medicine'.
***Microdosing mushrooms when medically/psychologically safe does not have this impact, as it has been shown in studies to help with substance misuse
Wellness and new age spirituality instead of mental health support
The human psyche is not infallible. We have genetic and epigenetic (environmental) factors that can destabilise the mind. This is part of being human. Not a failing. Wellness and new age spirituality have taught vulnerable people to be afraid of licensed support, and instead treat, energy work, diet, and spiritualise their way through mental health challenges. This is dangerous and unethical. It also has a backbone of shame around mental health struggles, which is deeply dehumanising.
It is common in life to have periods of getting destabilised for some reason; tough times in adulthood, or in childhood, grief, genetic susceptibility. This needs qualified support and sometimes a multidisciplinary approach. Access is an issue I know, and at the same time, wellness and new age spirituality can further destabilise someone and get them lost in a web of holistic treatments.
Unless for crisis stabilisation and mood stabilisation, I do not agree with the model of psychiatry because it is not scientifically valid, and does not have a biopsychosocial lens on mental health, which is necessary. I am glad to see holistic psychiatry gathering momentum.
Nervous system regulation and ‘somatic skills’ as the way to heal
There are some big programs, that champion ‘nervous system regulation’ and 'somatic skills' as the pinnacle of recovery. I get people landing in our community after they are burnt ot from doing that. Is it helpful to understand how our body expresses its stress responses? Absolutely. But it is really the height of reductionist asshattery, to ‘regulate a state’ without mindful awareness of the interaction between the unique person’s mind, body, and environment.
An example - you do a somatic skill to get 'out of' freeze, but then you continue to catastrophise, feel like a victim of your life or your condition, and you go straight back into freeze because those ways of thinking and believing feel viscerally unsafe to your body when you believe them. Another example, you are focused on your nervous system state to work with it all the time, instead of letting go of your death grip of over control for safety, and and allowing your body to guide you into what it needs. And a final example I see a lot is people knowing how to 'regulate' but are not able to meet thoughts, emotions, life experience with any equanimity because as soon as they feel uncomfortable, they have to 'do something' with their nervous system tools, which feeds the fear and symptom cycle.
There are no shortcuts to building back resilience in mind and body. No one in this quick fire culture wants to hear that daily mindful awareness of ourselves, our body, our life, is the key, because it is SO not sexy. It is slow. It happens in daily life as we get curious about ourselves, our patterns, and learn to bring in felt support, improve the moment, and learn simple skills to encourage our innate rhythms of regulation to come back online. It takes a lot of honesty and willingness to change, which is not easy. We all have unique lessons from these conditions. We discover those with mindful noticing over time.
Why are we having these treatments? Do you pause to consider whether they build empowerment and health?
Sometimes people are scared of getting back to life. This is not weakness, it needs support to understand what parts of them feel overwhelmed by life. Or illness gives them something they need but have not been aware of - like space, or being able to say no, or care and attention if they have part of them that did not get that. And so the cycle of illness and appointments can become a subconscious way to get needs met instead of learning our needs and how to meet them in new sustainable ways. Without mindfulness of our lives, we can get caught in a cycle of always ‘healing’ as a way not to encounter life, where our triggers and our healing lives.
I also sometimes see cycles of improvement and then when everything gets better, a trigger from ‘out of nowhere’ that will take the person ‘back’ and the cycle starts again. All the treatments, all the stories about it all. This is often an internal nervous system pattern where stability does not feel familar/safe, chaos does. Again this needs support. Lots of alternative treatments feed and hide that pattern.
Spending too much on functional medicine
It has its place, for sure. Our gut often needs a holding as it is so linked with our stress responses and can be struggling, we can have chronic infections that antibiotics end up making worse as they weaken us - so herbs like the Buhner protocols etc are really special. The same with other areas. Our thyroid is deprioritised in the stress response so lots of people will be hypo. Yes ultimately we hope homeostasis will kick in - but do hold it in the meatime with support etc
I give these as small examples of where it can be helpful to support our organ systems to self heal. I work as part of a clinic who do this, but the approach is biopsychosocial - not just functional medicine. The line is jumping down the rabbit hole of all the genetic mutations, 300 cell core products, working with a chiropractor influencer who specialises in these conditions for the mere price of 10,000 dollars. Just don’t.
Over focusing on trauma work
True trauma healing is always resilience based, meaning we focus on stabilisation, skills to feel safer in the moment, building what is RIGHT with you, not focusing on what is ‘wrong’ with you. It is not about trauma release! It is not about emotion release! It is about growing the felt capacity in our mind and body to hold our vitality, emotions, watch ur thoughts with equanimity, and be able to move things through safely over time. This is why experiential models that hold people in the present like Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, Brainspotting an Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, are so helpful. They are holding people in the present whilst helping their mind and body integrate what they once could not.
Trauma recovery is deeply relational so community, human support, pets, nature, will naturally heal us when we lean into this. Recovery is I believe also more skills based for those with CPTSD/developmental trauma than people realise, because we are able to learn life skills, mind body skills, communication skills, ways to relate to ourselves and the world that we may never have been shown. Over time these take over from a default way of meeting life; some version of fight, flight, freeze, fawn or shut down. People with more extreme emotional instability especially need to have these skills to stabilise, not be sent off to energy work and 'trauma release' sessions.
What does help
I don’t care if this is holding a cat whilst you walk naked anti clockwise around a wizard’s hat. We all have the right as to lean into what ever genuinely adds to what we want more of in our daily lives and brings us into empowerment. Instead of stuck in perfectionism, anxiety, always ‘healing’. Stop talking about your symptoms and complaining, because this feeds the cycle. Constant healing can tip us further down the scale of narcissism as we are so ‘me’ focused. Be in service, volunteer, be part of an in real life community where you give and receive.
In these conditions, the best supportive treatments help us with two things.........
1) Make us active in the process, not passive, because change comes from within. We actively engage with support from a place of building health and empowerment, not to ‘fix’ ourselves
2) Invite us into a state of receptivity to allow our system to be held and safe heal with touch and support - like cranial sacral therapy, trauma informed touch, yoga Nidra, nature, being in nature, dance etc. Because this teaches us to rest into felt support in life. To meet life as it is instead of bracing against it.
I personally believe both are necessary. People who want all of just number 2 you probably need more of number 1 because you cannot be rescued as an adult. These folks are often the ones doing a lot of energy work and holistic treatments. Radical responsibility is the spark that allows help to actually help. And vice versa, the super active work hard at recovery people that get no support need to learn to notice their tendency for hyper self reliance, and receive more support, have flexibility of approach instead of rigidity for safety, and learn over time to flow and go a day at a time
Safety First - We do not ignore basic physical and mental health needs
We need to be checked out periodically with conventional tests where needed. If we are too scared for this, support is needed for that fear. Not more avoidance. Women in midlife, do support perimenopaus and menopause because a lot of physical and mental/emotional symptoms are a result of this. We have generations of women over medicated in midlife for depression/anxiety when hormone support was needed. You do not need lots of tests to do this, and in fact tests in perimenopause for hormones are pretty meaningless. Symptom patterns are enough for skilled providers to prescribe safe HRT and lifestyle support as long as basic blood tests are sound. As ever with all life stages, midlife is biopsychosocial to support - meaning we need to build our health in multiple ways.
We must be supervised if we have severe mental/emotional instability. It is not safe or wise to lean on wellness, supportgroups, energy work, when what is needed is stabilisation. I have seen people go down extreme holistic healing rabbit holes from this lack of support. Ethical practitioners will always refer onwards for this support when there are signs that someone is in need of this. There is a mid ground between conventional and functional/alternative medicine that is about supporting the mind body whilst it self-heals. It will not be fear based. It will not use hokey tests that have no basis in scientific validity. It will leave you feeling more empowered, not less. And it will put you firmly in the drivers seat of your own life, where you belong.
