Many patients, even when faced with credible information about how our brains generate symptoms, still feel that this couldn’t possibly explain their particular symptoms. They still want to find an underlying medical cause or diagnosis, or perhaps they already have a particular diagnosis that they think explains all of their symptoms. This is very understandable – after all, we’re told that medical science has the answers to most of what ails us. Having a medical diagnosis also seems to offer a certain sense of legitimacy, and this can go a long way to ensuring that the important people in our lives take us seriously and don’t just brush off our concerns.
If you are not totally convinced that your symptoms could be due to mind/body connections, consider the following questions:
- How well have your current or past treatments worked for you? Are you where you want to be when it comes to your level of functioning? Are you having bad side effects from your current treatment?
- What’s the harm in exploring whether there might be a mind/body component to your symptoms? After all, treatment does not require any medications and there is no risk of horrible drug side effects or long term damage! In the worst case, even if you don’t feel any better physically, you might learn a bit more about how your emotional mind works.
- Many other people have benefitted from mind/body treatment – is it so likely that your condition is _that_ different from theirs? Here’s a video with a number of testimonials from actual patients as well as leading minds in the field of mind/body medicine: https://vimeo.com/1036924106/2ea197e337?share=copy
You might also be interested in spending time reviewing the Symptomatic Me podcast, which features patients who have recovered from chronic symptoms using mind/body treatment.
It’s okay to feel ambivalent. In the end, you should only pursue mind/body treatment if you think it’s right for you and will help you achieve your goals. The decision is yours and yours alone, but do ask yourself – “can I afford to be wrong?”