Interview on "The Story Behind the Symptoms"

Just after presenting my ethnographic case study of healing at the European Association of Psychosomatic Medicine, I was interviewed for the podcast, “The Story Behind the Symptoms,” from the Association for the Treatment of Neuroplastic Symptoms (ATNS).

David Clarke, MD, the president of the ATNS, is a kind and lovely man who does a wonderful job of interviewing people like me who have fully recovered from neuroplastic symptoms like chronic widespread pain.

He, like many people, found it fascinating that I experienced such pain while finishing up my PhD on chronic pain! But it was truly that fact that saved me. I had just spent 4 solid years deeply researching the theories and treatments surrounding chronic pain and other symptoms, so I knew what most people don’t: The medical system just isn’t built around neuroplasticity.

Those of us who heal typically do so only after exiting the medical system. I find that a crying shame—truly a shame. The pharma industry has such a stranglehold on medical education, and somehow this arbitrary divide between brain and body persists. (Tell me, how is your brain NOT part of your body?)

In this interview, we touch on many things, among them repressed emotions, EMDR therapy, triggers, ACEs, and social support.

If you treat people with chronic pain or have such pain yourself, I hope you will find insights here that help you on your journey.