Could it be that Medicine has just flat out missed a major cause of disease?
Is it possible that this heavily financed Elephant in the Healing Zoo has been chasing chemical monkeys while a principle cause of disease (emotions) has been purring in its lap for decades?
As an outsider to the medical field I feel a bit strange writing this. How does a mere Stanford engineer get off questioning the very foundation of one of the world's largest institutions?
On the other hand, I merely point out the obvious. So let me say it...
Unhealthy emotions such as anger, fear and trauma are a major drain on our body's immune system and thus show up physically as disease.
How simple ... and it is intuitively obvious. Just about everyone knows this at some level within themselves. Don't you know, for example, that retaining anger over a long period of time "eats away at your system" and causes blood pressure problems, stomach problems, heart problems and the like? There is plenty of scientific evidence along these lines but, apparently, it has been ignored.
I will be coming out next month (August) with about 30 hours on DVD wherein I apply EFT for 20+ people with Serious Diseases. I take aim solely at their emotional issues and, as those fears, angers, etc. vanish, you will see their physical symptoms dramatically fade. Pain recedes, flexibility returns, tremors subside and so on. It's astonishing to watch, especially since no medical procedures are used whatsoever. Note: Anyone can learn the basics of EFT for free by downloading the EFT Manual at http://www.emofree.com/downloadeftmanual.asp
These results would be impossible unless unhealthy emotions were an important cause of physical symptoms.
I'm very open to opposing views but, frankly, I doubt if a whole room full of doctors using conventional medicine (drugs, surgeries, radiation) can duplicate those results. This is not a criticism of the dedicated docs, by the way. Rather, it is a commentary on Medicine's Major Miss. If Medicine isn't addressing the true cause, then isn't it just masking symptoms?
Am I just being naive here? Do I really think that this simple idea is worthy of the Medical Monolith shifting its focus towards emotional causes?
Well ... yes!
A growing number of physicians are persuaded in this direction and one such doctor is Larry Burk MD, a radiologist in North Carolina. Dr. Burk appeared on one our DVDs and discussed these concepts with me at some length. Interestingly, he has seen many X-rays and MRIs wherein medical explanations are quite divergent from people's experiences of pain. I print below his comments on my recent post, "What REALLY causes disease?"
Cheers, Gary
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From Larry Burk MD
I’m responding to Gary’s 7/2/06 blog about What REALLY causes disease? The example of rheumatoid arthritis can be expanded to include all autoimmune diseases where medical science has documented antibodies turned against oneself as the cause of symptoms. However, the cause of the antibody response itself is never explained, so we are left pondering the deeper meaning of these diseases of self-hatred which have negative emotions turned inward as a central metaphor. The best evidence we have for the truth of this metaphor is when results such as those described by Caroline Higgins are obtained with EFT.
It is also instructive to note that many other ailments which seem to have an underlying anatomical cause may also have a deeper emotional root as well. As a radiologist I am acutely aware of this situation, since there are many scientific studies of MRI indicating that a surprising number of people with no symptoms whatsoever have rather dramatic abnormalities on scans obtained on a volunteer basis for research purposes. Equally puzzling, there are many patients with severe debilitating pain from conditions such as fibromyalgia who have no abnormalities on any MRI scans.
In 2001, David G. Borenstein, MD, published an article in The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery entitled The Value of Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Lumbar Spine to Predict Low-Back Pain in Asymptomatic Subjects: A Seven-Year Follow-up Study. In 1989, a group of 67 asymptomatic individuals with no history of back pain underwent magnetic resonance imaging of the lumbar spine. 21 subjects (31%) had an identifiable abnormality of a disc or of the spinal canal. The findings on magnetic resonance scans were not predictive of the development or duration of low-back pain.
Similar studies have been reported in asymptomatic volunteers for MRI findings in the cervical and thoracic spine, the shoulder and the knee. This research calls into question the assumed cause-and-effect relationship between symptoms and anatomical abnormalities. The same issues are raised by the fact that some patients get better when their physical pathology is corrected through surgery, and some do not. In additional research studies on the placebo effect, sham surgery has produced relief of symptoms when nothing but a skin incision was made at the time of the procedure. All of this information lends support to the concept that deeper emotional issues are at the root which can be addressed with EFT.
Larry Burk, MD
President, Healing Imager, Inc.