Psychophysiologic Disorders (PPD) - Mind-Body Therapy

Chris has a strong interest and years of experience assisting clients to understand and overcome the limitations they endure with psychophysiologic disorders (PPD) or mind-body disturbances.

These are conditions where symptoms occur for a reason yet there is:

  • no organ disease, and
  • no structural abnormality to explain the symptoms – be it chronic pain; unexplained infertility; or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

These mind-body symptoms can be seen to be caused by neural pathways that develop in response to stress, traumatic experiences, and repressed emotions.

These learned neural pathways are anatomical changes in the brain, which means that the resulting symptoms are in the brain and not “in your head”. The symptoms are very real and can be chronic and debilitating, but the good news is that they are also benign and curable.

Evidence supports the statement that one in three patients seen by primary care physicians have pain or illness not caused by disease or injury. Stress is the cause of symptoms in most of these patients.

Chris has decades of experience in assisting patients with these mind-body conditions. Symptoms can be seen to be caused or amplified by psychological processes and are not primarily due to the body’s organs or structures.

Common emotional processes linked to these symptoms include the long-term impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs); current life stresses (psycho-social stress); learned, habitual and default unhealthy negative emotional responses to situations and circumstances encountered (as opposed to healthy negative emotional responses); limited self-care skills; suppressed emotions; traumatic stress; depression; and anxiety.

Successful outcomes can be attained with attending to these considerations. In the 21st century we have achieved new levels of scientific understanding and therapeutic success with PPDs.

Some of the specific approaches that Chris takes to PPDs and mind-body conditions include:

Fertility Flows

Chris has been assisting women who have been experiencing difficulty with achieving conception since the year 2000. The first product of such intervention has recently graduated as a defense force officer.

There is usually a lot to be considered in assisting these women – most of whom have been undergoing IVF treatment for a number of years. When asked if any of the issues that we cover in assisting them have been addressed as part of their IVF treatment the answer is overwhelmingly “No”.

IBS Success

Since 1984 successful outcomes have been demonstrated and achieved in significantly reducing the troublesome symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome  (IBS) (bloating; gut pain; constipation; and diarrhea) by the systematic application of therapeutic hypnotherapy. The original 1984 research published in the Lancet was conducted at the University of Manchester where there is an active programme of providing these interventions to NHS patients.

Since 1994 similar research and interventions are conducted at the University of North Carolina.

Chris has been a guest at the University of Manchester programme and he has been accredited with the University of North Carolina to implement their hypnotherapy protocol.

In addition to the University of North Carolina hypnotherapy protocol, Chris also addresses additional relevant issues with IBS patients as mentioned above: a trauma-informed approach addressing ACEs and other traumatic experiences in life; unhealthy negative emotional responses to encountered situations and circumstances; psycho-social stresses; and arousal control strategies.

Pain Restrain

There are exciting new evidence-based treatments for chronic pain difficulties that are revolutionizing the whole treatment approach to the way that chronic pain conditions interfere with the quality of people’s lives.

Last century the approach was “pain management” where the aim was to reduce the interference that pain has in one’s life.

These newer approaches have resulted from advanced findings from brain science and aim at the elimination of pain by directly addressing the mechanisms of what we call “nociplastic” pain – learnt and reinforced neural circuit patterns that have become entrenched.

Prominent amongst these new approaches is pain reprocessing therapy (PRT), which focuses on:

 (i) distinguishing secondary pain (peripheral pain) – driven largely by pathological somatic processes – from primary pain (centralized pain) – which lacks a major somatic driver and instead is largely controlled by the brain and spinal cord.

(ii) informing and educating patients about the stress connection pathway of pain; how brains are wired differently with regard to pain compared to those with identifiable pathology; that the wiring can go back to a healthy pattern; that treatment will address the real  route cause of what is going on – the mind-body connection and the role of trauma and emotions in causing “neural pathway” pain.

(iii) changing the patient’s beliefs about the causes of and the true threat value of the pain experience – dealing with the misplaced fear that the pain signals threat, harm or damage.

(iv) utilising progressive efficient and effective new developments in the treatment of ACEs and general traumatic stress – specifically TFT-tapping or energy psychology techniques.