Pain Points with Max Shen

Doug Tataryn on a Physiological Basis for Repression

Dr. Douglas J. Tataryn is a psychologist and researcher whose work spans hypnosis, emotion, chronic pain, meditation, and complementary medicine. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology in 1991 from the University of Arizona, then spent ten years as a research professor with the University of Manitoba, before entering private practice in 2001 to focus on his Bio-Emotive Framework. In this conversation we talk about a paper he wrote as an undergrad on the physiological basis of repression, why Doug still finds the triune brain model useful, the electrochemical case for meridian systems, how sadness moves through the body and what happens when it’s blocked, and three significant unpublished studies to which he hopes to finally return. Timestamps 0:00:00 – Intro and Caveat 0:06:00 – Writing the paper on repressed emotions 0:09:40 – Muscle tension and cognition 0:12:15 – How muscle tension suppresses emotion 0:19:05 – Four core emotions and Doug’s triune brain framework 0:22:05 – Defining emotion 0:26:30 – Defending the usefulness of the triune brain model 0:28:30 – Energy and meridians 0:34:00 – Taoist ideas about qi, constriction, and emotional flow 0:38:00 – Heart math and energetic transmission 0:42:35 – Chronic pain from repressed emotion 0:45:20 – Jhana as pain relief 0:52:00 – The second arrow, pain asymbolia, and the affective component 1:00:00 – The relaxation response 1:02:55 – Why tension doesn’t always become chronic pain 1:05:30 – How sadness moves through the body 1:09:55 – Role of culture in expressions of pain 1:15:00 – The emotional meaning of typing 1:20:10 – Returning to unpublished research 1:31:50 – Leaving and returning to academia 1:37:00 – An offering on psychological interventions for the reduction of pain Links * Douglas J. Tataryn’s website [https://bioemotiveframework.com/] * 1983 paper: A Physiological Basis for Repression [https://bioemotiveframework.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/BEF_dougs_1983_paper_on_emotions_muscles_and_the_cortex_-_ocr.pdf] * Interview on the Deconstructing Yourself podcast [https://deconstructingyourself.com/meditation-emotions-bio-emotive-framework-douglas-tataryn.html] * Doug Tatryn’s Summer program on emotions [https://bioemotiveframework.com/summer-intensives/] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com [https://essays.debugyourpain.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Gay Hendricks on somatics, Sarno, and the Yes Breath

Gay Hendricks is a psychologist, somatic practitioner, and author of dozens of books including Conscious Loving and Conscious Breathing. After earning his PhD at Stanford and teaching psychology at the University of Colorado, Gay went on to develop his own approach integrating breathwork, movement, emotional awareness, and conscious relationship practice. In this conversation we talk about his entry into somatics through a painful Rolfing session, his connection to Sarno’s anger-pain model, how fear and sadness require different approaches than anger, and Gay even leads a live demonstration of the “yes breath”. Timestamps 0:00:00 – Intro 0:01:05 – Tashi Lhunpo Monastery 0:03:30 – Buddhism: Tibetan, Theravada, TM 0:05:40 – Feldenkrais, Reich, and Rolf 0:08:30 – John Sarno and the anger-pain connection 0:14:10 – Working with sadness vs fear 0:16:00 – Tension in breathwork 0:18:35 – Reich vs Feldenkrais, grounded breathwork 0:23:05 – Live breathwork demonstration 0:29:55 – Thirty years of radiance 0:34:55 – Live body language reading 0:39:20 – Learning how to see 0:42:35 – Tuning your instrument 0:46:20 – Research, science, and learning from individual cases 0:50:20 – Wonder 0:54:20 – Getting into altered states of consciousness You can find Gay Hendricks at his website [https://hendricks.com/]and check out his books, Conscious Loving [https://www.amazon.com/Conscious-Loving-Co-Commitment-Gay-Hendricks/dp/0553354116] and The Big Leap [https://www.amazon.com/Big-Leap-Conquer-Hidden-Level/dp/0061735361]. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com [https://essays.debugyourpain.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Simon Cox on the Subtle Body

Simon Cox is a scholar and practitioner whose work traces the history of the subtle body across Taoist, Tibetan, medical, alchemical, and Western esoteric traditions. He studied history at Oxford, spent six years training in a Taoist context at Wudang Mountain, and later wrote his dissertation at Rice on the genealogy of the subtle body. In this conversation, we talk about internal maps of the body, Taoist and Tibetan somatic cartographies, the challenges of translating contemplative practice across cultures, and how different ways of inhabiting the body may open into different experiences of reality. Toward the end, we touch on the ontology of pain, cultural differences in interoception, and embodied cognition. Timestamps 00:00:00 – Intro and Background Context 00:03:50 – Development of Internal Maps 00:08:00 – The Neijing Tu and Practice-Based Internal Cartography 00:11:30 – Porting Taoist Practice to the West 00:14:00 – Qigong, Neigong, and Modern Chinese Practice Categories 00:17:20 – Taoist Diversity and Tibetan Subtle Body Maps 00:21:10 – Medical vs. Spiritual Maps 00:25:10 – Paradigms, Tibetan Medicine, and the Three Turnings 00:27:30 – Two Unsatisfying Views of the Subtle Body 00:32:20 – Novel and Inevitable Syncretisms 00:35:00 – Historicizing and Genealogies 00:38:10 – Reality, Truth, and Embodiment 00:40:00 – Awareness, Inhabiting the Body, and Taoist Theories of Mind 00:43:20 – The Mind Outside the Body 00:46:00 – Fate, Ancestors, Purpose, and Lines of Affinity 00:49:00 – Polyontology, Political vs. Policing, Frequency Resonance 00:54:20 – Esalen, Western Somatics, and Theory vs. Practice 00:56:50 – Paradigm Shift, New Materialisms, Distributed Agency/Intelligence 01:00:50 – Ontological Pluralism and Eurocentrism 01:05:30 – Mutual Vulnerable Knowing and Minds Knowing Minds 01:09:30 – How Scientists and Technologists Can Contribute, and The Ontological Turn 01:15:10 – Embodied Mathematicians 01:20:00 – Technology with Different Ontologies, Tsien Hsue-shen, Cybernetics 01:26:30 – A Genealogy of Pain 01:31:20 – Ontology of Pain, Christian Suffering vs. Buddhist Suffering 01:35:00 – Biocultural Disease and the Social Transmission of Pain 01:40:00 – Simon’s Current Projects: Esalen, Harvard, Energy, and Qi 01:43:10 – Eugene Gendlin and Therapeutic Process Excellent interview [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNlty7pppzE] with Simon Cox on The Integral Stage where they actually talk more about the subtle body as a term. The Subtle Body: A Genealogy [https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Body-Genealogy-WESTERN-ESOTERICISM/dp/019758103X] by Simon Cox This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com [https://essays.debugyourpain.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Dr Thomas Pollak on Balinese witch doctors and therapeutic resets for chronic illness

A couple of months ago, I gave a presentation [https://essays.debugyourpain.com/p/the-set-point-theory-of-chronic-illness] the set point theory of chronic illness, it was an attempt to use a new language, the language of cybernetics to shift out of this mind body duality when talking about illness. The inspiration for this presentation was a paper by. Dr. Tom Pollock and Mike Levin. fter reading the paper and giving the presentation, I decided to reach out to the lead author, uh, Tom Pollock and have a chat. This conversation was the result. He’s a neuropsychiatrist based in the uk. We talk about his experience with a. Which doctor and how that partly inspired, uh, section in the paper. And more broadly on the role of, of experience and challenges when wading into this field where there’s a clear interface between the mind and the body. I hope you enjoy. Dr. Thomas Pollak is a neuropsychiatrist based in the UK who works at the interface of immunology and mental health. We talk about his encounter with a Balinese witch doctor, the cybernetics of chronic illness, and why psychiatry needs a more dynamic model of inflammation. Episode Outline — Dr. Thomas Pollak: Reboots, Resets, and the Immunopsychiatry of Stuck States 00:00:00 Introduction and the Set Point Theory of Chronic Illness 00:01:30 The Witch Doctor Story 00:08:00 Humiliation, Shame, and One-Pointedness as Therapeutic Tools 00:12:00 A Room With a Dead Body 00:15:30 Meditation Practice and the Constructionist Turn in Neuroscience 00:18:30 The Tantric Phase of Science 00:24:00 Reset vs. Learning vs. Unlearning 00:30:00 Safety Behaviors, Canalization, and Narrowing of State Space 00:37:00 Long COVID, Interface Disorders, and the Two-Camps Problem 00:43:00 The Role of Awareness in Healing 00:45:00 What Kind of Awareness Is Therapeutic? 00:49:00 Neurostimulation and Embodied Experience 00:50:00 Autoimmunity and Psychosis: The Main Research Thread You can find Dr Pollak’s substack here [https://drtompollak.substack.com/]. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com [https://essays.debugyourpain.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Elena Lake on Learning Subtle Bodywork

Elena Lake was a math major at MIT who later transitioned from her software engineering career into bodywork. We talk about her journey, and the role of perception in bodywork. Episode Outline — Elena Lake: From Engineering to Regenerative Touch 00:00:00 Introduction and Early Background 00:01:00 Trauma, Mental Health, and Limits of Talk Therapy 00:02:00 First Encounters with Touch and Somatic Relief 00:03:30 Massage School as a Foundation, Not a Revelation 00:10:00 Qualities of Touch, Trance States, and Sensory Depth 00:12:00 Advanced Touch Perception 00:14:00 Lineages of Somatics and Extreme Sensitivity 00:18:00 Developing “Regenerative Touch” 00:21:00 Awareness, Attention, and Where People Live in Their Bodies 00:23:00 Practice as Research and the Role of Presence 00:25:00 Models of Pain: Continuity, Tangles, and the Camel’s Back You can find out more about Elena through her website [https://www.elenalakebodywork.com/]. If you’re convinced of the role of the nervous system in perpetuating pain and other symptoms but are having weak results pursuing it on your own, feel free to reach out to maxkshen@gmail.com. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com [https://essays.debugyourpain.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]