Correction of pain using emotional-imaginative therapy N.D. Linde, O.D. Zhuravleva, K.A. Mkrtchyan The article discusses the possibilities of emotional-imaginative therapy in the correction of various pain symptoms of psychogenic etiology. Examples from the practice of students of the author of this method are given, showing that many pain symptoms, including chronic ones, can be corrected during one session, and complete remission is observed. This proves the wide possibilities of the EOT method, the independence of the results from the personality of the therapist, and shows the comparative simplicity of teaching the method. Key words: pain, emotions, image, therapy, method, correction. Pain is a very important feeling; it ensures the safety of the body. Those children who are born without feeling pain (a fairly rare congenital disease) do not live long. But, nevertheless, pain is an unpleasant feeling, people try to get rid of it. For this purpose, a huge number of different analgesics are produced that help relieve pain, but do not cure the original cause that led to the pain. Sometimes this is even dangerous, since the disappearance of pain can deceive the patient into calming down when he needs urgent medical attention. But still, most people understand when they can get rid of pain and when they should see a doctor; analgesics are sold in pharmacies without a prescription. Often, after the drug has stopped working, the pain returns, although in some cases medications help relieve not only pain, but also heal their cause, for example, spasm. Although from a psychological point of view, the cause of the spasm itself may be certain psychological factors. Therefore, it would be safer to remove the psychological cause of the spasm, which is what we do. For headaches, heart attacks, muscle pain, etc. people are usually in no hurry to seek medical help, but this is often difficult to do, and you need to get rid of the pain right now, it’s good if you have a life-saving pill right at hand. There are also chronic pains that do not go away, despite medications and medical care. The causes of such pain sometimes remain incomprehensible to the doctor, but they lie in the psyche of the patient himself. Such pains are called psychogenic, and to get rid of them the patient is recommended to undergo a course of psychotherapy. However, psychotherapy is a rather lengthy, complex and expensive form of help, and it is not available to everyone. In addition, psychotherapy is focused on understanding the causes of certain symptoms (psychoanalysis), developing correct behavioral skills (behavioral therapy), correct ways of thinking (cognitive therapy), etc. All these are long procedures and do not have a guaranteed result. The question of pain correction, especially its complete elimination, much less express help, is usually not raised; rather, the question is raised of how to live with pain. Hope appeared relatively recently, after I created (Linde N.D.) emotional-imaginative therapy (EOT) [2,8,12], some of the techniques of which can be used not only by professional psychotherapists, but even by student psychologists and just ordinary people who are far from this science, after a fairly short training. Of course, EOT has a wider scope. She has shown good results in working with phobias [13], and with emotional addictions [15], for working with the “Inner Child” [14], with relationship problems, with acute grief or the psychological consequences of violence, with a variety of psychosomatic symptoms. Currently, there is quite a lot of literature on psychotherapy for psychosomatic diseases, which, however, does not contain information on EOT (see, for example, [1,16,17]). With the help of this therapy, it is possible to completely relieve people from chronic allergies [7], rhinitis, there are cases of relief from asthma and stomach ulcers, tachycardia and arrhythmia. Follower Linda N.D. from Irkutsk Olga Baranova managed to stop uterinea woman bleeds within 12 minutes of work! But perhaps these possibilities manifest themselves especially clearly when relieving psychogenic pain. The pain goes away right here and now right during the session, which gives the impression of a “miracle”; surprised by their recovery, clients often say: “This cannot be!” Using EOT methods created by me, Linda N.D., me and my students It was possible to relieve headaches in 5 minutes (dozens of cases), relieve an attack of heart pain in 5-10 minutes (at least 15 cases). The effectiveness of the method is approximately 90 percent. The pain goes away immediately and does not recur for months and years, that is, we can talk about complete remission! Moreover, most patients experienced an additional feeling of relief and improvement, indicating that not only the pain, but also the cause that gave rise to it had disappeared. Many similar cases are described in the book “Emotional-Imaginative Therapy. Theory and practice", 2004 [8]. It also offers a self-help program if necessary, which anyone can use to relieve their headaches. At the end of the article there is a significant list of publications from which you can get your idea of ​​the EOT method [2-15]. With the help of EOT it is possible to relieve not only headaches and heart pain, but also chronic pain in any other parts of the body, which the client often considers somatic , and also in one session. For example, at a seminar I helped a young woman get rid of severe chronic pain in her left arm that she had been experiencing for 12 years, starting in the 8th grade of school. The pain was such that she could not lift her arm above her shoulder. Medical treatment turned out to be ineffective, but with the help of EOT the pain was relieved within half an hour. The cause of the pain that we identified during the session was the patient's negative defensive reaction to the oppressive behavior of her mother, which she encountered in childhood. After correcting this reaction, the pain no longer returned, which was confirmed two months later and again, six months later. In my practice, there are at least 6 cases of relieving constant pain in the arm, at least as many cases of relieving pain in the back, stomach or leg, several cases helping women suffering from PMS. The pain disappears or decreases permanently, and not just for the moment. However, despite many similar successful cases, despite the fact that my students, sometimes even untrained readers, received the same effects based on the book they read, there has still been no systematic research on this topic. There was also no systematic evidence that these results could be obtained by other psychologists trained in this method. To some extent, this deficiency is compensated by two theses for a bachelor's degree, completed by 4th year students of the Moscow Humanitarian University in 2007. Zhuravleva O.D. and Mkrtchyan K.A. studied in a master class on emotional-imaginative therapy in 2004-05 and 2006-07, respectively, and did their diploma work under my supervision. This article is devoted to the presentation of cases obtained not by me, but by my students, which is an additional argument in favor of the fact that other therapists can achieve results using my method. Below I present the results of the work of my students, I would like to note that in the future they continued his work and, when they defended their thesis for the title of “specialist,” each work cited 12 cases of successful therapy, but by that time the article had already been written and published in the journal “Questions of Psychology” No. 5, 2008, p. 163-169. O. Zhuravleva cites in her work “Possibilities of correcting negative psychosomatic manifestations using the method of emotional-imaginative therapy” nine cases of correction of various psychosomatic symptoms, of which 6 belong to the category of pain symptoms, but I do not cite two cases due to some vagueness descriptions. First case. “Stomach pain.” A 4th year student experienced abdominal pain in situationspublic speaking. They first appeared during elementary school. Therefore, O. Zhuravleva suggested that abdominal pain is a masked social phobia associated with certain traumatic situations from childhood. The image of fear created by the girl resembled a cartoon cookie man, which corresponds to the image of a weak and defenseless child. During the session, O. Zhuravleva used a whole series of therapeutic techniques aimed at strengthening and growing the child, making him able to withstand imaginary or real threats. This was successful, the client was able to raise an independent adult from an adapted (in the sense of E. Bern's theory) child, accepting him as part of her own personality. As a result, the pain went away, the fear of public speaking disappeared. The result was achieved in just one session, the client was observed by O. Zhuravleva for another six months, the pain and fears did not recur during this period. Second case. “Pain in the heart.” A 65-year-old woman is seen by a doctor, diagnosed with coronary heart disease. Heart pain has been bothering me for several decades. During the first attempt to create an image of heart pain, the client spontaneously felt an unpleasant odor, similar to the smell of burning rubber. It even seemed to her that the smell existed objectively, and only the testimony of the therapist and a relative present convinced her that the sensation of this smell was illusory. This spontaneously arising sensation allowed O. Zhuravleva to use a method that has long been used within the framework of emotional-imaginative therapy to correct pain in the heart, namely, the method of smelling the imaginary smell of pain [8], which allows the client to unconsciously process the emotional experiences underlying the occurrence of cardiac pain. As a result of this short session (a few minutes), the smell changed its quality and became a pleasant, “good” smell. Simultaneously with the transformation of the smell, all pain in the heart completely disappeared, shortness of breath decreased, the emotional state improved, the client began to smile. Unfortunately, the next day the pain in the heart returned again, but their intensity and frequency decreased, the woman’s interpersonal relationships improved. Third case. “Headache.” A 19-year-old girl has been experiencing periodic pain in her head since childhood, reminiscent of a feeling of heaviness. The pain was like a huge gray concrete slab crushing a small, weak sprout. Knowing that the girl is constantly controlled and raised authoritarianly by her mother, O. Zhuravleva suggested that the pain is associated with the suppression of the girl’s independence and will on the part of her parent. Therefore, all her proposals boiled down to activating and promoting the development of this sprout; the technique of energizing the weak part of the personality was used [8]. As a result of this work, the sprout grew and turned into a flowering tree, and the wall shrank and moved somewhere far away, so that it could no longer put pressure on it. As soon as this happened, the pain in my head went away completely. Further observations confirmed that the pain did not occur again for at least 8 months. Fourth case. “PMS.” An 18-year-old girl experienced an unbearable feeling of pain and trembling throughout her body during the first period of her period. The image of pain is a hand squeezing all the female organs in the lower abdomen. As it turned out, this spasm expressed deep resentment towards the father, who seemed to not want the girl to be a woman. When the therapist helped the client, working with the image of her father, get rid of this resentment, the spasm immediately stopped, the pain and trembling disappeared, and her hands became warm. Then, during the year, the pain symptoms did not recur. Mkrtchyan K. in his thesis cites 6 cases of correction of pain symptoms. Case 1. “Heart pain” The client was a 53-year-old man, who had a conflict with a work colleague before the onset of the symptom. My heart had been hurting at work and in the evenings for about two weeks now. The pain looked like a very dense black rubber hoop squeezing my heart. This hooprestrained angry feelings so that the client “wouldn’t do anything stupid.” The therapist first made sure that the client would not actually do anything wrong if the hoop stopped pressing on his heart. After which she suggested that the client use the technique of contemplation [8], that is, mentally concentrate on the black hoop and look at it carefully. As a result of this work, which took some time, the hoop melted, and the heart seemed to increase in volume, “beat and breathe.” The client accepted his heart as part of his personality and felt a warmth that spread throughout his chest. Further testing confirmed that the heart no longer hurt either while on the job, even in conflict situations, or in the evenings. About a year later, he again confirmed that he had never had pain in the heart. Case 2. “Sore throat” Young woman, 24 years old, married. A sore throat occurred after a conflict with my husband. The image of pain is a small hedgehog with large spines. The image of a hedgehog usually symbolizes a man, and needles symbolize criticism. So the spontaneously arising image confirms that the origin of the sore throat is psychogenic in nature, and the cause of the pain is a conflict with the husband. This session is more complex in its structure. The client, on the advice of the therapist, consistently applied three correction techniques: feeding the image (symboldrama method), paradoxical resolution [8] (“I won’t prick you” and “I allow you to be yourself”), and accepting the image. As a result, the client’s conflict with her husband was symbolically resolved, which suited her perfectly. The sore throat went away right during the session, which greatly surprised the client. Over the next 4 months, the client did not have a sore throat even once, although previously colds and sore throats were commonplace for her. Case 3. “Sore throat 2” An 18-year-old girl, her throat has been sore for a week. Has psychological problems in relationships with young people. The image of pain is a pot of dirt that is unpleasant to the girl. During the analysis, it turned out that the pot helps the girl defend herself from the annoying advances of “little people.” In fact, she experienced a lack of attention from the opposite sex. Therefore, the therapist’s hypothesis was that the girl was rejecting her femininity (sexuality), which was blocking her ability to build relationships with boys. According to psychoanalysis, the pot symbolizes the feminine principle, and dirt symbolizes rejected sexual feelings, unconsciously identified with feces. To overcome this internal conflict, the therapist suggested that the client use the technique of “playing with dirt” [8], but she categorically refused to mentally even touch it with a finger. However, she agreed to use the technique of “allowing the image to reveal its hidden potential” [8]. As a result, a beautiful flower grew “out of the dirt”, giving the client joy. Instead of dirt, there was now normal soil in the pot, the attitude of the “little men” had now surprisingly changed, they no longer “molested”, but became attentive and caring, which no longer irritated the client. The client accepted the flower as part of her personality and the sore throat almost disappeared. The next day, the pain disappeared completely, and the girl discovered that young people were showing her the desired attention. From then until now, my throat has never hurt. Case 4. “Pain in the heart 2” A young man, 19 years old, has been suffering from pain in the heart since the age of 15. The pain started after breaking up with my girlfriend. She suggested not to communicate anymore, without explaining anything, after which an ambulance had to be called. Then the young man was hospitalized twice for heart problems and took medication. The girl entered the same university as the young man, every time he meets her, he feels pain in his heart, thinks about her all the time, cannot communicate with other girls. And she acts as if nothing happened. The young man does not believe in renewing the relationship, and does not want to anymore. He expressed a desire to get rid of emotional dependence, so that he would no longer react to “her” and so that his heart would notwas sick. The therapist reasonably suggested that, in accordance with our concept of the formation of emotional dependence [15], the young man invested a lot of feelings in his relationship with the girl and that these feelings still seem to be with her. She invited him to imagine these feelings in the empty chair opposite him. The young man "saw" the image of a red heart-shaped balloon, he recognized that this was indeed part of his personality, and he would like to return it to himself. When he regained the lost feelings and integrated them with himself, he felt that warmth was spreading on his chest... A situational test (he was asked to imagine that he was meeting that girl again) showed that no more negative symptoms occurred. Three months later, he confirmed that his heart never hurt again, his relationship with that girl became friendly, and for the first time he became interested in another girl. Nowadays, when meeting with a therapist, he constantly confirms that everything is fine, he doesn’t even remember about previous pains, and now he has a beloved girl with whom everything is fine. Case 5. “Headache” Woman, 45 years old, married, has three children, the eldest daughter lives separately, two sons live with her. The client suffers from periodic headaches. The image of the pain is two steel balls, one larger than the other smaller, with spikes that continuously rotate and scratch the inside of the head. “Why do they do this?” - asked the therapist. Answer: “They ask for food in this way.” It is clear that in such a situation both balls were recognized by both the client and the therapist as images of the client’s sons, who in this way want to get her attention. The therapist suggested that the client mentally feed the “balls.” Gradually, the balls began to rotate more slowly, their spines disappeared, first the small one became full, then the big one, then both “fell asleep.” At this point, the client’s head stopped hurting. We cannot guarantee that she will no longer have problems in her relationship with her sons, but at this stage her intrapersonal conflict was resolved and the pain disappeared. Session 6. “Pain in the stomach” Client - woman 45 years old. Stomach pain and nausea occurred after she suppressed a reaction of intense anger. For some reason, the therapist did not consider the situation that caused the anger, but focused her attention on working with the feeling of anger itself. To do this, she suggested that the client create an image of pain in an empty chair. It was the image of some kind of melon, shimmering with all colors. The client was unable to complete the task of clarifying the role of the image. When she moved to the chair where this image was projected and tried to identify with it in order to later answer the therapist’s questions, she became physically ill, so this part of the work had to be stopped. This means that the image of the iridescent melon meant for her extremely strong negative feelings, most likely her anger, contact with which she was unable to withstand. Therefore, the therapist suggested that she use the technique of “negative energy conversion” [8]. To do this, she mentally passed the “melon” through some kind of “transformative partition”, which returned her energy to a positive form. As a result of this procedure, all the energy of the “melon” was transformed, and in its place a positive ball of transparent golden color was obtained. The stomach pain disappeared and was replaced by a feeling of calm. The client accepted the ball as part of her personality, and it entered just into the area under the stomach. A few days after the session, the client confirmed that the pain and nausea did not recur, the general emotional state improved and insomnia disappeared. To check the statistical significance of the results obtained, K. Mkrtchyan asked clients to rate the level of pain they experienced before and after the session using a ten-point scale. Figure 1 shows a graph reflecting the dynamics of pain in all 6 subjects. Row 1 corresponds to the subjective intensity of pain in subjects before the session, row 2 – after the session. The numbers on the abscissa axis correspond to the serial numbertest subject. Fig. 1 To test the significance of differences between group averages, nonparametric statistical analysis using the Wilcoxon test was used. This analysis of average pain ratings for the group showed that the differences in pain levels before and after the session were statistically significant (p ≤ 0.01). So the statistical analysis once again confirmed the already completely obvious result that emotional-imaginative therapy can help completely relieve the pain symptom in one session. Both students also conducted a color relationship test before and after the session, which also shows that as a result of correction work, the emotional state of clients naturally improves. Subsequent testing confirmed the stability of the results obtained, remission in all cases exceeded several months, the return of pain symptoms was never observed. So, two 4th year students, having completed training in a master class for 120 hours, are able relieve a variety of painful symptoms, sometimes associated with deep personal problems (fears, emotional dependencies, parental instructions, conflicts, etc.). They have dealt with these cases in just one session (no more than one hour) and the results of their work are absolutely reliable. This probably proves that the EBT method is a very effective and fairly easily transferable technique to students, that the reliability and effectiveness of the method does not depend on the personality of the master. This does not mean, of course, that all pain symptoms in all clients can be relieved by these therapists or by this method, the main thing is that the number of successful cases is quite large. Only psychogenic pain can be relieved by the EOT method, and it is necessary that the client actively cooperates with the therapist. We have not yet studied phantom pain, migraines, fibromyalgia, various neuralgia, etc. But there has been some success in relieving pain from rheumatoid arthritis. These are complex topics, but one should not give up the hope of helping suffering people; the possibilities of EOT may be much wider than those that are currently known. Numerous practicing psychologists, neuropsychiatric doctors and other physicians who actually encounter such cases could become interested in the EOT method, and after completing a short training course, introduce it into your daily work, discover it and your new opportunities. References Kulakov S.A. Basics of psychosomatics. – St. Petersburg: Speech, 2007. Linde N.D. Meditative psychotherapy. Educational and methodological manual. M., 1994. Publishing house of the Institute of Youth. Linde N.D. A technique for changing the emotional state through image transformation. Bulletin of psychosocial and correctional rehabilitation work. No. 1, 1997, pp. 33-41. Linde N.D. Image transformation as a method of changing the emotional state. Journal of a practical psychologist. No. 8, 1998, pp. 50-60. Linde N.D. How to get rid of a headache or heart pain in 5 minutes. Brochure. Samizdat. M., 1999. Linde N.D. Fundamentals of modern psychotherapy. Moscow, 2002. 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