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Sharon Matthews came down with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) in 1997. For eight years she struggled with the common symptoms of muscle pain, headaches, exhaustion, dizziness, irritable bowel and ‘brain fog’ (poor memory and concentration). A woman in her twenties, she was soon forced to give up her job in a bank and, by degrees became entirely reliant on her boyfriend to do the simplest things. She herself became housebound, fearing to walk even a hundred yards for fear she might collapse in the street. Told that there was no cure for her condition, Sharon’s life looked bleak indeed. But in the Summer of 2003 she began her first consultation in Reverse Therapy. By the following Spring she was entirely symptom-free. A few months after that she was back at work in a new job and living a full and active life.
Reverse Therapy and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Reverse Therapy is a groundbreaking new therapy for the treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) and Fibromyalgia (FM), pioneered by Dr John Eaton, a UK based academic and former psychologist and psychotherapist who has spent the past nine years researching ‘Bodymind’ intelligence and developing and refining a unique therapeutic approach to ‘Bodymind’ healing. Although Reverse Therapy can be used to treat a wide variety of symptomatic conditions, it has been mainly used for the treatment of CFS/ME, producing nothing short of spectacular results in the UK so far.
Reverse therapists consider Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, and so-called Post-Viral Fatigue Syndrome, to be different expressions of the same underlying condition. Symptoms are created when Bodymind detects that a state of ‘dis-ease’ exists – a fundamental disharmony between Body intelligence and Head intelligence, and between environmental demands and personal needs. Specifically, Bodymind – working mainly through the Limbic system – registers that the individual is under threat from external pressures and that the emotions linked to these pressures are creating an overload within the body. This triggers the Hypothalamus – the area in the brain that is responsible for maintaining homeostasis (equilibrium) – to overwork the glands – particularly the Adrenal glands to the point of exhaustion. That, in turn, leads to overwork of the Immune system, the Gut, the Muscles and Circulation until these different systems cease to function normally – leading to the multiple symptoms described. One reason so many sufferers incur viral problems at the start of the illness is not because the virus caused the illness but because a breakdown in the Immune system led to a breakdown in the organism’s defences.
However, these problems can quickly be reversed once the Hypothalamus returns to normal function. Reverse therapy focuses on working with Bodymind healing processes in order to abolish the state of dis-ease that underlies the need for Bodymind to create symptoms in the first place.
What is Bodymind?
Dr Eaton first became interested in the relationship between the body’s intelligence and a state of ‘dis-ease’ in 1996 when his wife, Yvonne was diagnosed with a rare and debilitating auto-immune condition called Sarcoidosis. At first he noticed that his wife’s symptoms often rose or fell according to her emotional state, indicating that some symptoms may be a type of ‘distress signal’ designed to alert his wife for a need to re-establish her emotional health. He then came to believe that certain symptoms might also contain an implicit ‘message’ that - if acted upon - could reverse the body’s need to create the symptoms. Dis-ease, it became clear, was a state in which the individual had somehow lost the ability to connect to, and actualise, their emotional needs.
Further investigation led him to the realisation that body intelligence was centred in the limbic system – often called ‘the emotional brain’. Essentially, Bodymind uses emotions – neurochemical changes in the body – to warn, guide and protect us. Subtle sensations of discomfort can come up to alert us to unwelcome influences, while ‘bigger’ emotions like fear, anger and joy can teach us, respectively, to get support, assert our rights, or engage more in fulfilling relationships. It is only when these emotions, and the actions related to them, are blocked that Bodymind starts to create symptoms as a last resort – trying ever harder to get our attention to the things we need to do to restore health. In this sense all physical symptoms have a meaning and purpose and healing comes about as soon as we uncover their hidden message.
Bodymind contrasts with Headmind – the ordinary mental intelligence so many of us acquired in the Western system of education and upbringing. Headmind works on rules and concepts, expectations and demands, words and memories. Strictly speaking it does not belong to us but was given to us so, in a sense, Headmind contains all the norms of the social order. While it has its uses it can go disastrously wrong for us when it becomes an end in itself, divorced from the passion of Bodymind. This is really the basis of what is called dis-ease – a split between head and body that means we lose sight of who we really are, and of the emotions that bring authenticity and fulfilment to our lives. At that point Bodymind will step in and trigger the Hypothalamus to send symptoms to urge us to take corrective action.
“The longer we ignore those signals the louder & more pronounced & chronic the symptoms become”, says John. “ When the client overcomes the environmental trigger however, Bodymind picks up the message that there is no longer a problem and dissolves the chemical memory and symptom – or symptoms - associated with it. Symptoms then disappear simultaneously”.
There are in fact three stages of ‘dis-ease’ in people with CFS/ME or Fibromyalgia. The first stage is an alarm reaction – or ‘a wake up call’ - where the body triggers a series of hormonal changes that place the body on red alert. If the body’s messages are ignored at this stage, in time ‘dis-ease’ progresses into a state of resistance. In this stage Bodymind realises that its early warning signals are being ignored and that we are continuing to resist the need for change. In the resistance stage symptoms begin to intensify and become more chronic. Finally, if we continue to ignore the body’s messages – if Headmind keeps blocking our emotions and needs - we eventually reach a state of exhaustion. In ‘The stalemate stage’ our ‘Bodymind’ is still trying to keep the body on red alert but our body’s hormonal system – and other functions within the body - can no longer cope having reached the limit of their ability to keep going under emergency conditions. Symptoms then worsen and become even more chronic and a vicious cycle begins.
What is Reverse Therapy?
Reverse Therapy is essentially a Bodymind healing process. Although it involves face-to-face consultations without physical massage, medication or supplements it is not a form of psychotherapy. John is adamant that psychotherapy is not appropriate for people with CFS or Fibromyalgia as they do not have a psychological problem. Any suggestion that this could be the case he believes to be not only insulting but wrong. Sufferers with these conditions have a non-specific illness, expressed as a glandular disorder, creating real physical symptoms. But the appropriate form of treatment he recommends is one which addresses Bodymind’s need to create symptoms in cases of emergency.
“Most forms of Psychotherapy focus on getting rid of symptoms, he says, but Reverse Therapy doesn’t do that. It works with symptoms rather than against them. Reverse Therapists don’t focus on dreams or work with childhood memories and - most importantly - they don’t try to change peoples’ thoughts about the past. What Reverse Therapy does is to help people become more aware of their body’s communications”.
Reverse therapy is really an educational process in which clients learn to understand the split between Headmind and Bodymind, raising their awareness of Bodymind communication through feelings, sensations, emotions and symptoms.
By learning to attune to Bodymind – and Reverse therapists use a variety of sensate focusing activities to do this – people gradually uncover the hidden message of the symptoms. A journal is used to pinpoint increases in symptoms and specific situations in which that occurs. At that point the Reverse therapist collaborates with the client in order to put together new strategies for the expression of emotion, and new activities to reduce external pressures. Empowering the client through applied learning is at the core of therapy.
The ingredients that make up Reverse Therapy aren’t new – it has been greatly influenced by the groundbreaking work of Ernest Rossi into the psycho-biology of mind-body healing and the ideas of Milton Erickson in particular (also Eugene Gendlin, Hungarian Psychologist, Hans Seyle, Dr Candace Pert and Fritz Perls’ Gestalt Therapy amongst others) - the synthesis and step-by-step treatment process is unique. He also claims that, although the process has taken years to develop and refine, it is in fact a relatively easy process to follow and understand.
“Treatment is essentially a simple, educational and collaborative process where clients not only learn about their illness but become active partners in their own healing”, Dr Eaton says.” The solution is in every client’s hands and it starts by them learning how to work with the body’s own intelligence – with Bodymind. Indeed, most clients actually enjoy the treatment, it empowers them. These factors alone are the reasons why Reverse Therapy has been so successful”.
Reverse Therapy differs from psychotherapy approaches in a number of ways. The first is the fact that Reverse Therapy is not interested in trying to work with or change Headmind – our attitudes, thoughts, beliefs, values and ideas – in fact, it bypasses it, focusing instead on action and emotion. Nor do Reverse therapists accept the existence of the ‘Unconscious Mind’, arguing that all its key attributes – instincts, passions, intuitions, emotional memories, automatic reactions and associative learning – can be more easily explained by looking at Bodymind. This holistic perspective restores the unity between mind, body and person and is in line with most of the newest advances in research into the biochemistry of the brain and nervous system.
The second difference – and perhaps the most important – lies in activating the symptom message. This process actually lies at the core of Reverse Therapy. Knowing why a symptom is there is merely a Headmind response and is not enough: the message needs to be consistently and decisively acted upon before Bodymind can feel able to reduce symptoms. Initially, Reverse therapy investigates what was happening in the client’s life when symptoms first began and clients are asked to recall events, feelings, sensations and emotions associated with the symptoms to get a sense of what the body’s intelligence was - and is - trying to encourage them to do. Obtaining an accurate symptom message is crucial to effective therapy and this requires considerable skill on the part of the therapist. One of the key qualities Reverse therapist must possess in order to be effective is an acute sense of Empathy, which enables them to develop their own feeling for what is going on in the client’s intelligent body.
However Dr Eaton believes that a problem may occur when the condition becomes prolonged. When this happens, the ‘illness experience’ itself – of feeling ill, disabled, frustrated, rejected, abandoned and distressed - can create yet more environmental pressure. This fresh pressures can then create further changes in the emotional brain and HPA axis and intensify symptoms. This too can be resolved in Reverse Therapy.
“Because sufferers are desperate to get well they can become very sensitive to the appearance of symptoms and so frequently ‘scan’ their bodies, although most are not conscious of doing this . After a while this checking becomes a habit, its connection with fear is picked up by the emotional brain, triggers an alarm reaction in the Hypothalamus and eventually a new chemical memory is created – but this time for the experience of illness!”, he says.
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