An Energy-Over-Mind Approach to Healing

We often hear about the concept of healing with a mind-over-body approach. In my own work with self-regulation, I do not find this to be sufficient for reversing chronic indolent diseases. Instead, I see superior clinical results when my patients adopt an "energy-over-mind" approach, i.e., when they learn how to listen and attend to their tissues and shut out their thinking minds.

We take pride in our minds, but healing is not an intellectual function. Healing cannot be forced upon injured cells and tissues by a demanding mind. Rather, healing occurs when the tissues are set free from the ceaseless censor of the mind. My patients were unable to control their asthma and migraine attacks, lower their raised blood pressure, or reverse other chronic illnesses with a mind-over-body approach.

The Limbic Dog

 A boy brought home two newborn puppies, one was white and the other gray. He fell in love with the white puppy. He put the gray puppy in a crib and held the white puppy in his hands. The white puppy kept his eyes closed. His skin was soft and his hair snow-white and delicate. The boy petted his white puppy until late evening hours. Then he asked his mother if he could put his puppy to sleep in his own bed. His mother smiled and told him that was very dangerous. The puppy could be smothered by him in his sleep. The boy understood that and gently put the puppy in his crib.

When he woke up the next morning, his puppies were awake and seemed hungry. He took the puppies out of their crib and asked his mother to teach him how to prepare their formula. As he fed them, he had eyes only for the white puppy. Then he put the puppies back into the crib, instructed his mother about their care and left for school. At school, he was distracted all day by thoughts of his white puppy. The gray puppy was not a part of his day. When the school bell rang for the last time, he ran to his home to be with his white puppy. Once home, he threw his satchel on a chair and rushed to the crib. The noise woke the puppies up. He lifted both puppies out of the crib and put them on the floor. Again, he had eyes only for the white puppy. He petted him and held him in his lap. The gray puppy moved around, unaware and unaffected by the boy's preoccupation with the white puppy. Late that night, he fed the puppies again, his eyes remaining fixed on the white puppy.

The next day was no different. The boy woke up and hurried to the crib. The puppies were sleeping. He gently petted the white puppy as it slept. Then he brought the puppies their meal. He watched every little movement the white puppy made with intent eyes. This day at school was like the previous day. He stayed deep in thoughts of his tiny white puppy. Again, the grey puppy was out of his mind. That afternoon and evening, he again played with the white puppy. The gray puppy wandered around, oblivious of the boy's preoccupation with the white puppy.

Days passed and then weeks. The boy's fondness for the white puppy seemed to grow with each passing day. The puppies grew up fast and became strong. The boy started housebreaking his puppies. That is when the boy's parents noticed that the gray puppy began to misbehave. Sometimes he looked at the boy with silent, plaintive eyes, at other times he barked without any reason. On occasion, he appeared to want to break things. On some afternoons, the gray puppy seemed to purposely throw up his food on the kitchen floor and soil the rug in the living room. That annoyed the boy's parents and they scolded him. As for the boy, he was too absorbed playing with his white puppy to want to do much with the gray puppy. Each time the gray puppy did something the boy didn't like, it further drove the boy closer to his white puppy. The more the gray puppy was scolded, the more accident-prone he became.

Months passed. The puppies grew up into little dogs. The boy's love for his white dog became deeper with each passing month. The white dog knew this. He waited for the boy to return from school all day. The afternoons were pure bliss for both of them. They played together, ate their meals together, and then went out to a nearby field for more play. The gray dog seemed to sense the closeness between the two and often became sad. Sometimes he felt angry and hurt. On most days, he kept all that to himself, but sometimes it was too much for him. It was then that there were accidents that made the boy yell at him. Some more months passed.

Then the gray dog changed. He was not sad anymore. Nor was he ever angry. No one noticed that the gray dog stopped having any accidents. He neither made a mess in the kitchen nor did he soil the rugs anymore. When the boy returned home, the gray dog stood back, watching the white dog leap to meet his little master. Sometimes when the boy's eyes fell upon the gray dog, the dog gently cocked his head or wagged his tail. That was all. The boy didn't follow it with any words. The gray dog didn't ask for anything more.

Years passed. The boy grew up into a young man and the dogs into two strong dogs. Every day, when the young man returned from work, the white dog greeted him with great excitement and leaped all over him. The gray dog stood behind, silently watching the two friends. After some time, the man went to his kitchen and cooked his meal as the white dog hovered around him. The gray dog stood still in the corner. His face bore a calm, unexpressive expression. After the meal was ready, the man ate it with his white dog and then left his house for a walk with his white dog. It was then that the gray dog walked over to the table and ate what was left behind. Then he walked out briskly to catch up with the man and his white dog. There he stood by the edge of the field, impassively looking at the man and the white dog. When it turned dark, the man and his white dog returned home, the gray dog walking several paces behind them. That was the way weeks followed the days and months followed the weeks.

One rainy day the man was driving to work when his car slid and crashed into another car. He sustained a head injury and concussion and fractured several of his ribs. Some days later, he opened his eyes and saw some fuzzy figures in white robes milling around his bed. He tried to sit up but collapsed with pangs of pain in different parts of his body. Moments later he opened his eyes and looked around the room. He saw tubes and wires running into his body parts from bottles hanging from poles and video screens on the walls. Is it a nightmare? Am I dying? he wondered. Then he saw some nurses walk by. He realized he was in a hospital. He thought back and recalled the fleeting moment of terror before his car crashed. His body shook with fear. He tried to get up, felt a sharp pain in his chest and collapsed onto his bed. Am I going to live? he asked himself as he came around the second time. He looked out of the window. The sunset filtered weakly through the mist of a late winter afternoon.

The man closed his eyes. A faint shadow of a dog appeared in the distant mist. Then the shadow sharpened into the face of a white dog. The dog looked at him with gleaming eyes. My dog, he murmured softly and opened his eyes. His face softened into a smile. A nurse passed by. Again he closed his eyes to recapture the image of his white dog and savor the moment. The dog's head reappeared. His chest heaved as he looked longingly at his dog. Love filled his whole body and everything that surrounded him. He opened his eyes and looked around. He felt calm as he looked at the pale yellow solution dripping slowly into the little chamber below the IV bottle and the blips and waves moving across the heart monitor.

The man studied the ICU room for a while and then closed his eyes again, wondering if his white-faced visitor still hung around in the mist outside his window. As his eyes closed, the image of his white dog reappeared, and then it changed. The white face of the dog became pale and then beige. Slowly the color deepened and turned darker. Suddenly there stood before him his gray dog, silent and sullen and sad. Something stirred in him. He opened his eyes in pain. The image of the head of his gray dog vanished. He looked at the faint pale sun disk through the mist and felt sadness surging within him. Slowly he closed his eyes. A sharp image hit his eyes this time. It was the picture of his puppies the day he first brought them home. Something stirred in him again, much more intensely than before. He opened his eyes but this time it was different. The image of the gray dog persisted in the mist. The gray dog peered at him with his large, soft brown eyes. Oh, my God! The words froze in his throat. How could I? How could anyone? He cried out in pain. How could anyone be so cruel? How could I have been so cruel, and for so long? He closed his eyes in deep anguish. The image of the gray dog persisted before his closed eyes. The dog looked at him with vacant eyes. The man's arms rose to reach the gray dog in the mist. The dog's image receded further back into the mist. And then the dog's eyes turned wet and there was a flood of tears in his large, brown eyes. Oh, my God! the man winced with intense pain. How could I? How could anyone? How could I? he repeated his words. But the images rolled on and on, like a homemade video. Images of a tiny gray puppy, searching for something in the eyes of a little boy. Images of a gray puppy awkwardly throwing himself at a little boy as the boy shrank back to pick up a white puppy. Images of a puppy vomiting on a kitchen floor and urinating on a rug. Images of a puppy being scolded by his parents. Images of a gray dog barking and breaking things, and being punished. Images of a dog standing still in the corner sadly looking at a white dog and his master eating their meal on a table. Oh, my God! How could I? How could anyone? The man trembled uncontrollably as he wept unashamedly. "God, take me if you will," he sobbed inconsolably, "but first let me make it up to my gray dog."

The man survived his injuries and was let out of the hospital after some days. He took a taxi to his home. As the taxi drove onto his driveway, the dogs heard the noise and ran to the front door. The white dog was ahead of the gray dog as had been their habit for years. The man stepped out of the taxi. The white dog thrashed against the door with full force of his forelegs, in a frenzy of motion. The gray dog peered out from behind the white dog, his whole body heaving with excitement and his tail wagging wildly. The door suddenly gave, spilling the white dog. The dog lunged at his master. The gray dog leaped behind him and then came to an abrupt halt. The man gently pushed the white dog aside, threw his arms wide open, ran toward the gray dog, and hugged him.

The gray dog bit the man.

 Why Did the Gray Dog Bite the Man?

 There are three possible outcomes of autoregulation. First, there may be the case of an absence of tissue response whereby the individual experiences nothing. Second, the tissues may respond in a positive, comforting way. Third, the tissues may respond in a negative way, the response varying from mild discomfort to severe reactions of intense distress.

Of the three outcomes, the absence of a response is, of course, the easiest to understand. Many people go through life never knowing the energy of life in their tissues. Most of us are not aware of how our tissues can and do respond to us once we have learned how to attend to them. In the prevailing dogma of drug and scalpel medicine, the very concept of tissue response to self-regulatory methods is a taboo subject, fodder for the feeble-minded in medicine. The absence of tissue response supports our notion that only drugs or surgical scalpels are suitable as valid therapies. The possibility of self-regulation for most physicians is a distraction, poorly tolerated because it interferes with our surgical schedules and robs us of the promise of miraculous drug cures.

The second possibility, the tissue energy response, when perceived and experienced by an individual, always brings to him profound insights into the workings of his body organs. The tissues do respond when we learn to attend to them. Of this there can be no doubt. Perceptions of such tissue responses were an integral part of many tribal rituals in earlier times. The ancients understood this phenomenon well. Today, professionals in the biofeedback community accept this as a routine experience for those who practice self-regulation. Every Wednesday in my autoregulation laboratory my patients feel these responses and I demonstrate to them clear electrophysiological changes in the various parts of their bodies that accompany these responses. People describe the positive tissue responses as energy expressed as warmth, flushing, heaviness, magnetic energy, tingling, throbbing or pulsating.

The negative energy responses to self-regulation are just as varied as the positive ones. Many people experience brief episodes of lightheadedness, anxiety, rapid heart rate, discomfort in their eyes with or without watering or searing effects, uneasiness in the chest, mild cramps in the abdomen, spasms in neck muscles and stiffness in low back muscles. In most instances, such responses are of short duration and of no consequence. Almost always, such responses represent a mild expression of symptoms they have suffered in the past. I have observed this phenomenon of pain and suffering arising from simple attempts to still the mind and attend to one's tissues. Why do these tissues do so? Listening to tissues is being kind to them, I reasoned. Why do they protest? Why do they bite back?

The phenomenon of adverse tissue responses ranging from mild discomfort to intense physical suffering has preoccupied me for several years. Why do tissues respond positively sometimes and negatively at others? When tissues do not respond at all, why do they fail to do so? These questions have stayed with me as I have listened to my patients over the years. The stories of the cortical monkey and the limbic dog took shape in my mind as I observed my patients during autoregulation.

 THE BITE OF THE NECK MUSCLES

Sheila, a 48-year-old woman, consulted me for sinusitis, chronic headache and fatigue. Following a clinical evaluation and allergy tests, I started some nutritional and allergy therapies. I advised her to get some training in autoregulation methods as I do for all my other patients. She had done some biofeedback previously and was not very eager to consider any other form of self-regulation. Within weeks, her allergy symptoms and headaches improved. After attending my autoregulation workshop, she returned for autoregulation training in our laboratory. I applied the electrodes and other sensors for monitoring her various body functions during autoregulation. After some introductory remarks about what we were going to do, I asked her to sit comfortably on her chair, close her eyes and follow my words.

In autoregulation training, for the first minute or so, I usually observe the subject and his moving graphs on the computer screen and note how cortical or limbic his state of biology is (sharp fluctuations in graph lines with tall peaks and deep valleys indicate cortical turbulence, and smooth and even lines with gentle wave effects reflect a limbic calmness). Sheila visibly stiffened her neck as she closed her eyes, and the computer screen displayed wild fluctuations in her graphs of skin conductance energy, muscle potentials, heart rate and the pulse pressure. This is not unusual for many people and represents apprehension at not knowing what will follow. Generally, such electromagnetic fluctuations subside and I begin to see objective evidence of a transition from a stressful, turbulent cortical state to an even, restorative limbic profile. This was not to be the case with Sheila.

Within several moments, Sheila's neck began to turn and twist. She frowned with closed eyes. Her lips quivered and her jaw muscles tensed up. A few moments later, she broke into clonic, almost convulsive spasms of her twisted neck. To witness sudden, unexpected convulsive activity in a patient who appeared in good health, of course, is not an unusual experience for physicians. I had extensive clinical experience in emergency medicine and surgical trauma cases during my years in surgery and had seen people break out into sudden convulsive activities on many occasions. I am rarely unnerved in clinical settings. This turned out to be an exception. I found Sheila's sudden near-convulsive activity in her twisted neck and her distorted facial features frightening. I suppose because it was the first time I had started out with a patient in a private office setting, very much like someone's living room only to end up abruptly in an emergency. I touched Sheila's hand and asked her to open her eyes. Her clonic neck contractions stopped as suddenly as they had appeared once she'd opened her eyes.

I forced a smile. A faint smile appeared on Sheila's face. We were quiet for a few moments.

"What was that?" I asked, in as natural a tone as I could muster.

"Oh, it's nothing," Sheila replied evenly.

"Nothing?" I asked, surprised at her composure.

"It's nothing. It happens all the time."

"Happens all the time?"

"Yes! I am used to it."

"What is it? How often do you get it? I mean, why didn't you tell me about it?"

"Happens all the time." Sheila forced another smile. "I didn't tell you because I thought there was no point to it."

"No point to it?" I was incredulous.

"No other doctor ever believed me. So I didn't see any point in bothering you with this. I guess the doctors thought it was hysteria or something."

"Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. Why don't you tell me about it?" I coaxed her.

"Oh! Dr. Ali, there is nothing anyone can do about it. You know it happens every night." Sheila's voice quivered. "Every night, it happens."

I looked at her in silence for a few moments. She looked back at me impassively.

"Tell me more about it." I broke the silence.

"There is nothing more to tell." She shrugged.

"What happens afterward?"

"Every night it happens as I put my head on my pillow and close my eyes. My neck turns and twists and cramps. It hurts me awful." Sheila suddenly broke down and sobbed. I offered her some tissue paper.

"Do you want to stop here?" I said without meaning to say so.

"Not really. When my neck hurts, I open my eyes and the spasms go away. Sometimes I sit up and think. Sometimes I try to read. Then I get exhausted and try again, and again it happens. This goes on all night. Every night."

"When do you sleep?"

"When I am totally exhausted with pain and sleeplessness. Sometimes in the early hours of the morning, maybe four or five, I finally dose off for a few minutes." Sheila sobbed again.

I sat frozen as I listened to her. Tolstoy thought happy people were all alike but each unhappy person was unhappy in his own way. How many Sheilas did he listen to? I wondered. How many Sheilas are there in this world anyway? Living out their lives in silos of sadness.

"Sheila, would you do me a favor?" I asked her, recovering from my personal thoughts. "Would you mind if we did this again?"

"What would that do?" she asked indifferently.

"We might learn something," I encouraged her.

"Learn something?" Sheila smiled again, in earnest, I thought, this time around. "Go ahead, if you think it will help you."

I didn't miss her intonation. I hesitated for a minute. Scientific curiosity taking wings at someone else's expense? Now that I write about Sheila I wonder if I knew why I made this request. I knew it was going to distress her again. What did I hope to find? Did I know what might happen? If I did, how did I? It's odd that these questions never arose until now, a few years after that event.

"Yes, Sheila, I think it will help me," I admitted as much.

"Let's do it then," Sheila shrugged her shoulders.

"Can you take the pain if I continue for a few minutes this time?" I asked.

"Take the pain?" She laughed this time. "What else do I do every night."

"Sheila, this time I am going to close my eyes, too. We will do autoreg together."

We started again. Sheila closed her eyes and the neck contractions returned just as they had the first time. I braced myself, led her into autoregulation again and closed my own eyes. Long hours of autoregulation had given me the ability to turn off my own cortical monkey on rather short notice. I opened my eyes after what seemed to me were five to seven minutes. Sheila's neck still quivered a little, but the intense clonic contractions were gone. Her face appeared calm, her hands resting limp and loose on her thighs. I asked her to open her eyes. We talked for some minutes and then did some more autoregulation. Sheila returned for some more training.

Several months later during a follow-up visit, Sheila told me how her neck problem had mostly cleared except for some nights when she had been extremely stressed after long, demanding hours of work.

Why did Sheila's neck muscles rebel when she closed her eyes? Why did the neck contractions stop when she opened her eyes? And why did the neck muscles finally respond when Sheila and I persisted in listening to them? The purpose of autoregulation, of course, is to comfort the hurt tissues. Why did Sheila's tissues bite back? What possible good, I wondered, did her neck muscles think could come from the games they played? Was it anger turned in as my friends in psychiatry propose? Was it spite? Sheer hostility of the tissues? Did these tissues act so viciously on their own or did they take their cues from somewhere else? Did Sheila's brain send them confusing messages? Was this all mischief perpetrated by the cortical monkey? Or was there a gray dog somewhere? And if there was a gray dog there, why did he bite?

 THE BITE OF THE CONFUSED BRAIN CHEMISTRY

Edward ran a profitable engineering company before he was hospitalized for suicidal depression. He suffered from multiple allergies and chemical sensitivities. Prior to and after his hospitalization, Edward consulted a succession of psychiatrists who prescribed almost every single antidepressant described in the Physician Desk Reference. He reacted to all of them except Klonopin, which he took but tolerated poorly. His depression fluctuated widely, and he often became suicidal. His wife, Susan, brought him to me one winter evening. She had learned of my work with nondrug therapies. Susan was hoping, she told me, that diagnosis and management of allergies and chemical sensitivities and nutrient therapies might alleviate some of his depression. All through the first visit, he remained distant and doubtful.

In those early years of my work with environmental medicine and autoregulation, I had the opportunity to care for a large number of patients with allergies and chemical sensitivities who also suffered from depression. Depression in such patients, even when there is a family history of depression, responds well to nondrug management therapies of molecular medicine. None of these patients, however, had been so afflicted with deep, unrelenting depression. I felt inadequate and unsure of my ability to manage such an advanced case. Still, I knew that optimal care of allergies and chemical sensitivities, proper nutritional support and autoregulation could be expected to relieve some of his suffering. My main task, it seemed to me then, was to make sure Edward and his wife understood that. They seemed to understand all this and told me to go ahead. Tentative and uncertain of myself, I proceeded with the examination and micro-elisa allergy tests. In the next visit I reviewed the test results, initiated immunotherapy, prescribed nutrient therapies and gave him training in basic autoregulation. As Susan looked on with evident hope, Edward remained distant and doubtful.

During the next follow-up visit, Edward looked distraught and annoyed. I asked him how he felt.

"You want the truth, Doc?" he asked with unmasked hostility.

"Yes!" I answered.

"I think this whole thing is a hoax," Edward said flatly.

"A hoax?" I was taken aback.

"Yes, a hoax. A hoax to make money," Edward frowned.

Edward's words caught me off guard. This was the first time anyone had accused me in this way. I looked at Susan and fumbled for words. Susan looked embarrassed. I looked out the window for a few brief moments. The sky always has a comforting quality for me.

"Shall we stop here?" I asked Edward as I recovered.

"I don't care. You do what you want to do," he answered indifferently.

I looked at Susan. She told me they had driven for more than an hour to come to Bloomfield, and asked me if I would continue. Edward simply shrugged his shoulders. Unsure of myself, I proceeded.

A week later, Susan told me Edward was now very intrigued by my basic concept of energy-over-mind — energy of body tissues as the medium of self-regulation. He listened to my tapes, read and re-read The Cortical Monkey and Healing and some of my other writings on this subject. His initial doubts appeared to have been replaced with curiosity. He had some problems with alcohol abuse and had attended some meetings of AA and other support groups. He stopped going to those meetings because he had not found them to be very helpful.

The promise of autoregulation, Edward told Susan, was totally different. What appealed to him most was the central idea of autoregulation — of seeking healing with energy, a no-thinking rather than a clever-thinking approach. During one of the early autoregulation training sessions, he had felt pulses in his fingertips and gotten very excited about it, but then it didn't happen again. Still, he persisted with autoregulation.

Days passed and then weeks. Pulses didn't return to his fingertips, nor did any other part of his body respond during autoregulation. Edward read the books again and listened to tapes endlessly. Nothing happened.

The patches of snow on the north side of the woods around our office in Blairstown melted away and bulbs began to sprout. Ground squirrels seemed happy in their spring celebration dance. On many visits, Susan brought along her teenage sons. Strikingly good-looking boys, they made a handsome family, close, loving and full of life — at least that's the way they looked to people who didn't know the deep river of anguish that flowed within them. The boys understood the enormous inner pain of their father and the unending misery of their mom.

Some more weeks passed and Edward continued to suffer, often intensely. He practiced autoregulation regularly, he told me, but there had been no response from any of his tissues. After a few months of persisting, he felt some pulses in his fingertips for a few brief moments in the shower, and then, in his own words, his fingers went dead. I could think of no clear approach. I began to consider the futility of this tack for him. Still, I advised him to persist. His allergy symptoms abated somewhat, but overall there was no appreciable improvement. Hope was fading from Susan's face. Such times are hard on physicians. Would it ever work for Edward? Am I chasing a delusional plausibility? I asked myself.

FIELDS OF CANDLES

Depression is a problem of confused brain chemistry, I tried to explain to Edward when I saw him after the fiasco at the physician meeting. I told him to imagine that there was a field of candles. Below the surface all of the candles were wired. When the winds blew, many of those candles were put out. The circuitry connecting the candles beneath the surface came to life and lit the extinguished candles. It all happened in moments. No one realized that one candle had gone out. No one, of course, who had intact circuitry.

When cells are hit hard by injurious elements, be they chemical injuries to nerve cells or sad thoughts that deplete the energy neurotransmitters at the cell membranes, the cells recover, largely because they network. Cells knew about networking long before the yuppie generation did when it got laid off after the stock market crash. The candles in the cells are lit up by electromagnetic matchsticks sent to them by their friendly neighbor cells.

It is different with people who suffer from depression. Their cells crave for the day (adrenergic) and night (serotinergic) neurotransmitters, but the neurotransmitters are nowhere to be found. Their network connections are weak, sometimes moribund, near death. When the winds blow, they put out the candles. The cells in the neighborhood watch helplessly. Then there are yet more winds and yet more candles go out. And it goes on and on till, as one patient who suffers from depression and who listened to me talk about the fields of candles put it, there are no more lit candles. There is darkness of deep depression. Deep holes that sink deeper and deeper. And then there are no walls around the holes. Only a free fall into abysmal darkness.

I told Edward I had seen people learn how to banish those winds of the thinking mind when they first feel them rising. I had seen what the limbic tissue energy can do. I had seen all that through the eyes of my patients who had been there. There, deep in those dark recesses. I also wondered where the true hope ended and deception began. I wondered if the experience of these other people had any relevance to Edward.

I don't know why and how Edward persisted with autoregulation. Some months later, disillusioned with the results, I suggested to Edward and Susan that they consult some other physicians who might have better luck than I did. "Doc, you want to throw me out, do it. I am not going to see any more doctors. I have seen enough for one lifetime," Edward answered emphatically.

It took Edward several months before he began to sense the response from his tissues with autoregulation. He told me he was able to do things at home and sometimes at work, and didn't much think about the relief that death might bring anymore. My notes written on Edward's chart next summer include the following quotation from Susan, "After nineteen years, Edwards has lived this summer." I was deeply moved by her words. Edward followed it by telling me how successfully he was coping with heavy, ongoing losses at his business and how he was dealing with the possibility of declaring bankruptcy.

"Doc, it is hard to believe I am doing all this and still continue to think of the future of my family," he told me one day.

How much can a person take? No one knows enough to be a pessimist, Cousins' words came to me. There is a limit, an absolute limit to how much anyone can suffer, came the response from within me. What can he do to absorb these new shocks? I wondered. I advised Edward to consider joining the local Recovery chapter in his area and attend their group meetings. Now that his body was beginning to respond, I told Edward, it might be of great value for him to attend Recovery meetings. Edward and Susan listened to me intently.

"Doc, you are a very funny man," Edward's face broke into a broad grin.

"What did I say that's so funny?" I asked, somewhat overwhelmed by his sudden outburst of energy.

"You are funny! Doc, very funny," he went on as his wife looked at him with obvious confusion.

"Yes! I am funny, Edward. But I still do not know what you found so funny?" I spoke plaintively.

"Doc! How could you tell me to go to Recovery group meetings?"

"Because I think folks at Recovery are very good at what they do," I answered matter-of-factly.

"Doc, you forget what I told you when I first saw you. Remember I told you I had been to AA and several church groups. I told you the talking therapies had not worked for me. You are the one who first told me to try the tissue energy approach. You are the one who first talked to me about listening to tissues. Perceiving their energy as you call it. Enhancing it. And when the tissues wouldn't talk back to me, you told me to hang on. So I hung on. Boy, did I hang on! I bought all that. And now that things are beginning to shape up, you tell me to return to those group meetings. You are funny! Doc, you are a very funny man." Edward stopped talking and looked at me as if he had just swallowed a canary.

 Why did Edward's abnormal brain chemistry bite him so hard as he closed his eyes? The cortical monkey again? Or was there something more to that? Was it an ugly prank of the monkey, or a painful bite of the dog?

Why did the gray dog bite his master anyway? Was he angry? Vengeful? What did he want? Revenge for all the years of neglect, of hurt, of absence of love? How could he have known what had passed before his master's eyes in the hospital intensive care unit? How could he have known what his master felt that day? How could he have known he was going to be hugged that day? Had he been scheming silently for years for that day to arrive? So he could bite him and get even for years of suffering? How could he have figured all that in that one brief moment when the man brushed aside his beloved white dog and ran to him? Or was the gray dog simply confused? Did the man's hug stun the limbic dog in him? Did the limbic dog suddenly get disoriented by an unexpected burst of love? Love coming from someone he thought incapable of loving him? Why then? Why not on some earlier day?

Why did the limbic dog bite?

 DO MOLECULES, CELLS AND TISSUES HAVE CONSCIOUSNESS?

 Do tissues have consciousness? I am told what separates man from the beast is consciousness. Man, such reasoning goes, is capable of rational thought; hence, he is rational. Where do human tissues fit in? With man, the rational being, or with the beast, the living thing without any consciousness? Are human tissues mere globs of protoplasm? Without consciousness? Ugly clumps of cells, blood and tissue fluid? Heaps of shining insignificance? So what are human tissues? Confused dogs, ready to bite? They cannot be trusted anytime, anywhere without the constant censor of the thinking head. The cortical monkeys look away for a passing moment and the limbic dogs bite!

I do not know much about the consciousness that the enthusiasts of artificial intelligence talk about. Those who profess to understand consciousness and seek to relate it to the artificial intelligence of computers, it seems to me, are simply putting on airs. Nor do I understand the basis of the recent claim of Crick and Koch that the "problem of consciousness" is on the verge of solution (Scientific American September 1992). But I do know this: The injured tissues do not lie. The only part of the human condition that lies to us is the thinking brain. The heart, the lungs, the kidneys, muscles, tendons and the skin never learned to lie. When we do choose to listen to the injured tissues, they do speak the truth. This is the truth about the language of injured tissues. This is the truth about the bite of the limbic dog. How do I know? Because I know the limbic dog is not into biting. The limbic dog is a loving dog. Sheila found out. So did Edward. I know of hundreds of Sheilas and Edwards who found this out.

If bad thoughts can cause cancer, I heard an expert pronounce on the radio some time ago, why can't good thoughts make it go away? The expert then went on to congratulate himself for the clarity of his thoughts. I wondered if this expert had ever really cared for anyone with cancer. He is right about the first part of his discovery. Indeed, unrelenting bad thoughts can create relentless stress that can break our molecular and energy defenses, and so lead to production of tumors. How does this expert know that the tumor cells — or for that matter healthy cells — care about our infatuation with our thoughts, and the notions that our thoughts metamorphose into the physical reality of our choosing. My patients have taught me that tissues respond only when we attend to them in a no-thinking mode. Tissues do not seem to care much about our great intellectual prowess. They have little respect for our clever intellectual schemes.

I see many patients who tell me they can control their migraine headaches and asthma attacks with mind control. Someone once told me he even "killed" his cancer by turning off its blood supply. This always fascinates me. I do not for a single moment doubt that they are telling me the truth as they see it. So I ask them to explain how they use their minds to control their headaches or asthma attacks. This is how the conversations have gone many times.

"Tell me, how do you control your asthma attack?" I ask.

"By mind control," the patient replies.

"Good! Now, tell me how do you do mind control?" I ask again.

"By mind-over-body," the patient repeats.

"That's good. How do you do your mind-over-body thing?" I repeat myself.

"You know how! By mind-over-body."

"That's really wonderful. Now tell me how do you do it?"

"By ... By mind over ..."

"Yes, I know it is by mind-over-body. But tell me how you do it," I persist. "I write about this stuff. I can't write mind-over-body over and over again, can I?"

There is usually a long pause. Then comes a hesitant answer:

"I guess I really don't know. But honest, Doc, it has happened many times," he speaks defensively.

"Of course, it has happened many times," I reassure him.

I believe him. I have no valid reason to call his assertion a lie or consider it a delusional plausibility. I do, however, have a strong sense that the asthma attack subsides not because he has figured out a clever way to send some clever electromagnetic impulses from his thinking cortical brain to the tightened muscles in his bronchial tubes. Rather, by some great intuitive insight he has learned to keep his cortical monkey out of the way of his bronchial tubes. Delivered from the ceaseless chatter of the mind, the limbic muscles in the bronchi tube open up. They do so because that's what they were designed to do. The bronchial muscles do not know how to write computer software. Neither do they know how to read poetry. They open up because that's the only thing they know how to do. The thinking mind can shut them off, but it doesn't know how to open them up. That they must do by themselves, by some limbic quality, without any help from the cortical monkey.

THE BITE OF THE PSYCHONEUROIMMUNE DOG

Tammy, a woman in her late forties, consulted me for multiple sclerosis. She had experienced abnormal sensations in her limbs with "pins and needles" and weakness of muscles for a few months. She became very frightened when she started losing her balance and had difficulty walking. MRI scans ordered by one neurologist showed demyelinating lesions in her brain and spinal cord. A second MRI scan ordered by a second neurologist confirmed the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.

"I know it's not that," Tammy spoke after I finished reading her file and looked up.

"It's not what?" I asked, without really needing any clarification of her words.

"It's not multiple sclerosis," she said firmly.

"How do you know?"

"I just know."

"How?" I persisted.

"Because that's what happened the last time," she replied emphatically.

"What happened last time?"

"They said it was lupus and they gave me cortisone. I threw the cortisone out after a few weeks."

"Then what?"

"Then I took a lot of vitamins and my lupus went away."

"How was lupus diagnosed," I asked, feigning surprise.

"They did all the tests. ANA, LE prep and a test for proteins in the urine. You know, everything the rheumatologists do."

I had gotten used to such stories by then. The first few times had been different. It had been hard to believe patients who told me such stories. It literally meant throwing out all my medical texts. Patients with serious autoimmune disorders such as lupus and multiple sclerosis are not supposed to get better by simply taking vitamin pills, at least not according to our medical texts. The hard-nosed pathologist in me had great difficulty in believing what medical texts said couldn't be believed. Then things changed for me. My patients forced me to think differently. With the passing years, I saw too many patients who'd positive lupus and rheumatoid factor tests go on to recover and lived healthy lives for years. I realized the tests simply indicate signals of stresses on our immune defenses. Nothing more. How many times does one have to be hit on his head?

"Tell me something about the stress in your life." I returned from my own thoughts.

"You know how it is. Everyone suffers stress in life," she replied.

"That's true. Still, tell me. Is he very supportive?" I asked her, gesturing to her husband who had sat silently listening to us.

"Yeah, he is supportive," she replied after a slight initial hesitation.

We physicians do learn with time. Minor delays in answers often tell us more than many carefully crafted answers from our patients. I smiled at her husband and returned to my questions.

"What was the year they told you had lupus?" I asked.

"1984." Tammy leaned back in the chair.

"What happened in '84?"

"Nothing!"

"What happened in '83?"

"Nothing!"

"Nothing in '84 and nothing in '83?" I looked into her eyes, persisting in my inquiry.

"What happened in 83?" Tammy sat up.

"Yes, what happened in 83?"

"My mother died." Tammy's neck stiffened.

"Were you close?"

"Very."

"Very close?"

"She was my best friend."

"What happened early this year?"

"What do you mean?"

"What happened in the months before you developed pins and needles in legs and arms?"

A hurt expression crossed Tammy's face and she sat up. I looked at her in silence. She seemed to read my mind and quickly recovered her composure. Then she turned her face to her husband who glanced at me uncomfortably. I looked back at Tammy.

"We had family troubles."

"Would you rather not talk about them?" I asked.

"No! There is nothing to hide. We separated for some months."

"And then?"

"Then we got together to see if we could make it."

"And then?"

Tammy broke down. I didn't have to look at her husband to learn anything more. Was there a chance for some wound healing there? I wondered. Serious illnesses sometimes break good marriages. Sometimes they also mend broken ones. If the latter was going to prevail, it would not be the first time I had seen a major disease lead to healing of deep wounds of lost love. Those things just seem to happen.

"Tell me, how do you react to perfumes and formaldehyde and tobacco smoke?" I changed the subject. Tammy slumped back into the chair.

Psychoneuroimmunology, my friends who thrive on the matters of mind and body tell me, is the branch of medicine that deals with interrelationships between the psyche, nervous system and the immune system. It is a jaw breaker of a word. Whenever anyone throws this term at me, my thoughts go to Socrates and his oft-quoted words:

It fascinates me. It took us about two centuries of medical research to separate the mind from the body. It took us a near century to define the immune system as a system of antibodies and antigens, quite discrete from the brain and our psyche. And now we are devoting hundreds of thousands of hours in research and spending millions of dollars to prove that these indeed are interrelated. We physicians excel in reinventing the wheel. Old Socrates, he had the last laugh.

How did Tammy's immune system turn against her? How did the loss of her mother lead to the formation of antibodies against the nuclei of her own cells — that is what ANA (anti-nuclear antibodies) are. Eight years later, how did the threatened loss of her husband turn her immune system against her own myelin sheaths? Myelin sheaths are the insulation cover of nerves that normally prevent short-circuiting of electromagnetic impulses passing through the nerves. That is the essence of multiple sclerosis. What did the death of Tammy's mother have to do with her developing lupus? What did her impending divorce have to do with her myelin sheaths? Why did the psychoneuroimmune animal in Tammy bite her?

Perhaps some day we will have a better understanding of the healing energy of God. Then we will be able to answer the obvious questions with the objectivity demanded by science. For now, I am convinced tissues, cells, molecules and electrons have their own intelligence, their own consciousness. They feel and respond. As for the purist in science who feels a surging desire to ridicule me, I ask only that he observe individual cells shaved from living tissues and kept in tissue culture petri dishes. Observe and reflect upon the greater glory of the intelligence and consciousness of these cells. Reflect on how they adapt to their new life in the petri dish. See with awe the sheer energy of life.

I ask the skeptic in medicine to consider nitric oxide. It is a simple gas made up of an atom of nitrogen and oxygen each. It is a triumph of nature in molecular design, a marvel of biology. One of the simplest compounds known to us, nitric oxide is elegance in simplicity. It opens up the arteries thrown into spasms by adrenaline and its companions in cortical conspiracies. Tight arteries are tired arteries. They scream for help. An enzyme, nitric oxide synthase, acts upon amino acid arginine and splits a molecule of nitric oxide, leaving behind molecules of another amino acid, citrulline. It is this simple molecule of nitric oxide that also serves as a messenger, whereby immune cells called phagocytes recognize and destroy foreign invaders like disease-causing bacteria and errant cells that cause cancer.

The nitric acid molecule fascinates me because it makes sense where nothing else does. It is produced by individual cells in times of their need — without any commands from the thinking mind. Nitric acid production is a local energy event. Each nitric acid molecules produced locally in response to a local need puts to a lie the common belief that clever thinking — mind-over-body approach — heals. This simple molecule gives me a rational, scientifically sound and believable chemical and energy mechanism to help me comprehend — partially at best — how autoregulation works in real life. It helps explain why autoregulation does not work for some people for long months, and how it does work when finally it does. This molecule is one of those that hold the key to understanding how exhausted tissues may — and do — finally escape the cortical tunnels and walk onto limbic openness. And, yes, it does open some windows to Sheila's suffering. And the suffering of Edward and Tammy. And of the suffering of all the other Sheilas and Edwards and Tammys. Nitric oxide, of course, is not a lone warrior rising against adrenergic tyranny. There are others. Some of them we know. Some others, I am sure, will be recognized at some future time.

THE BITE OF ADRENERGIC HYPERVIGILENCE

A man gambles and his wife suffers from diarrhea. A man fears he will lose his job after 25 years of work with his company. A woman cares for her mother dying of cancer and suffering from unremitting pain. A salesman returns home without a sale and weary with fatigue. We say they live in stress.

A young man suffers a sudden panic attack. He cannot breathe, has heart palpitations and thinks he is dying of a heart attack. A woman dashes into the street to yank away her toddler who is walking toward a speeding car. A leopard chases a deer and the deer sprints to dodge the attacker. What are the molecular dynamics of these events? Chemistry of the stress reaction, the so-called fight or flight response. The role of adrenaline and its cousin molecules, catecholamines, in the cause of stress is well-known. In the stress reaction, arteries in limbs and abdominal organs tighten, muscles in the body tense up, pupils dilate, heart rate quickens, skin rises in goose pimples, and the cortical brain shifts to a higher gear. Nature gave us this reaction for a survival advantage, so we can escape faster to safety or dig our heels to fight out the aggressor for life. The problem is these cortical molecular devices do not know their limits. Once triggered, they initiate cascade events, forever feeding upon themselves.

The so-called chronic stress syndrome, of course, is nothing but adrenergic molecular hypervigilence. In this syndrome, the body organs are hit hard with a new stressor before they have a chance to recover from the previous insult. Relentless stress causes unrelenting demands on body organs; the tissues scramble, suffer and finally suffocate. The role of many other neurotransmitters in the cause of other chronic disorders has been expounded in recent studies. The common thread in the energy dynamics in all these states is cortical overdrive. The question that has preoccupied me for some years is this: How do tissues counter cortical molecular hypervigilence? How do they escape from cortical torrents? How do they return to a limbic state? Do they do so because the cortical brain sends electromagnetic messages to them to ease up? Or does it send some neurotransmitters to cancel out the effects of adrenaline and its companion molecules in cortical conspiracies? Or do individual cells in tightened arteries and spastic muscles have their own molecular devices to escape the tyranny of cortical tyrants?

How do adrenergic dogs bite? In the same way a teenager jolts his car on his first driving lesson. Letting go in comfort and peace does not come the way a meal comes at a fast food outlet. Molecules have their own rhythms, their own timing, their own sense of space.

Every Wednesday I give autoregulation training to a group of four or five new patients. I hear the moans of a limbic dog in one or two patients in almost each group. Fortunately, the bite of the limbic dog is not as bad for most people as it was for Sheila and Edward and Tammy. Most people experience spasms in their neck muscles, low back stiffness, mild chest discomfort, anxiety, rapid heart rate, lightheadedness, and occasional episodes of watering or searing eyes. Such limbic bites are brief and of no consequence. All a person has to do to overcome them is to persist in autoregulation.

There is a cortical monkey in each one of us. Most of us see him clearly. There is a limbic dog in each one of us. Many of us are totally oblivious of his existence.