Your emotional type : key to the therapies that will work for you

205 Pages·2011·2.77 MB·English

by  Michael A. Jawer

YOUR EMOTIONAL TYPE
“Your Emotional Type may be the Rosetta Stone we’ve been waiting for—a
code for matching a particular therapy to a particular patient. Micozzi and
Jawer . . . have found gold.”
LARRY DOSSEY, M.D., AUTHOR OF HEALING WORDS:
THE POWER OF PRAYER AND THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE AND
THE POWER OF PREMONITIONS
“Your Emotional Type, securely grounded in scientific research affirming
the inseparable unity of mind and body, enables readers to understand how
their own personalities may make them prone to a wide variety of health
conditions, from chronic fatigue to hypertension, from migraine to
fibromyalgia. Most helpfully, the authors guide people to the therapies most
appropriate to each personality type. The book is empowering, helping us to
become active agents in our healing rather than being simply the recipients
of ‘cures’ from a medical approach that fails to recognize the uniqueness of
individuals.”
GABOR MATÉ, M.D., AUTHOR OF WHEN THE BODY SAYS NO:
EXPLORING THE STRESS-DISEASE CONNECTION
“Your Emotional Type is a very useful guide for anyone in search of
therapies best suited to their bodymind type, their style of handing strong
feelings, and the nature of their health problems. In particular, the thin-to-
thick boundary scale—a unique window on personality type—offers a
valuable framework for helping people choose among the array of
complementary and alternative therapies.”
DEANE JUHAN, AUTHOR OF
JOB’S BODY: A HANDBOOK FOR BODYWORK
“A much-needed guide to the fundamental connection between emotions
and common physical and mental ailments—and what to do about them.”
MIRIAM GREENSPAN, THERAPIST IN PRIVATE PRACTICE AND
AUTHOR OF HEALING THROUGH THE DARK EMOTIONS
“By helping patients understand the connection between their personality
type, their symptoms, and treatment choices, Jawer and Micozzi help
patients become more informed consumers of alternative health care.”
ILENE A. SERLIN, PSYCHOLOGIST AND
DANCE/MOVEMENT THERAPIST
“Easy to read and articulate, Your Emotional Type could become an
important and clinically useful work.”
ERNEST HARTMANN, M.D., PROFESSOR OF PSYCHIATRY, TUFTS
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, AND AUTHOR OF
BOUNDARIES:
A NEW WAY TO LOOK AT THE WORLD AND BOUNDARIES IN THE
MIND: A NEW PSYCHOLOGY OF PERSONALITY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to thank Ernest Hartmann, first and foremost, for supporting
our desire to apply his boundaries concept to chronic illness and to
complementary and alternative therapies. We also gratefully acknowledge Deane
Juhan for his embrace of the book’s content and his outstanding foreword; Larry
Dossey, Gabor Maté, Ken Pelletier, and Ilene Serlin for their enthusiastic
endorsement of the material; and Joel Isaacs of Bodynamic Institute USA for his
permission to reprint the bodymap used in figure 1 at the back of the book.
Michael Jawer would like to thank his cherished wife, Bonnie, whose
enthusiasm and on-point critiques throughout the book’s development were
highly welcomed; their kids, Gabrielle and Bradley, who insisted on completing
the short-form Boundary Questionnaire themselves; and his parents, Helene and
Robert Jawer, for teaching him (though he didn’t know it at the time) all about
boundaries. Their example, as human beings, parents, and unique (yet
compatible) individuals, continues to be an inspiration.
Marc Micozzi would like to acknowledge with gratitude his many colleagues
who have reviewed the CAM therapies addressed in this book and whose
published work provided a basis for our analysis. He also thanks professors Adi
Haramati and Hakima Amri of the CAM program at Georgetown University’s
School of Medicine, where we lectured on boundaries and administered the
short-form Boundary Questionnaire. And thanks to his daughter, Alicia, for
completing the questionnaire and making helpful suggestions.
At Inner Traditions/Healing Arts Press we acknowledge Jon Graham,
acquisitions editor, and John Hays, director of marketing, for their early
recognition of the promise of this project; and Chanc VanWinkle Orzell, project
editor. We also wish to thank Marilyn Allen for her constructive questions that
helped flesh out the application of boundaries to personality and CAM treatment
type.
CONTENTS
Cover Image
Title Page
Epigraph
Acknowledgments
Foreword by Deane Juhan
Preface
Introduction
CHAPTER 1 • You Are Your Bodymind
THE ENERGY OF EMOTIONS
THE FAR-FLUNG REACHES OF THE BODYMIND
MORE EVIDENCE FOR THE BODYMIND
FEELING BLUE
THE MIND OF THE GUT
HEARTFELT
A CHANGED VIEW
LOOKING AHEAD
CHAPTER 2 • Our Boundaries, Our Selves
BOUNDARIES ARE CRITICAL
HARTMANN’S BOUNDARY SPECTRUM
WHAT WE NOW KNOW
THE BLUSH AND THE MIGRAINE
THE FLOW OF FEELING
EXTREME EMPATHY
EVERYONE IS PSYCHOSOMATIC
PRACTICALLY SPEAKING
CHAPTER 3 • Personality Differences: A Key to Decoding Chronic Illness
THE MOST BASIC DIFFERENCE
TWELVE CHRONIC ILLNESSES
THERE’S NO SILVER BULLET
BACK TO BOUNDARIES
BROADER THAN BOUNDARIES: THE EXAMPLE OF SKIN AILMENTS
THERAPIES TO FIT THE PERSON
CHAPTER 4 • Boundary Similarities and Differences: Chronic Fatigue, PTSD,
Irritable Bowel, and Fibromyalgia
BODY ON THE BRINK
DISTANCE FROM FEELINGS
TOO MUCH STRESS: THE ORIGINS OF CFS
THE CFS TRIGGER
PTSD : A NEW VIEW
IRRITABLE BOWEL SYNDROME
FIBROMYALGIA
A PERSONAL REMINISCENCE
A MIX OF CONDITIONS
SUMMING UP
CHAPTER 5 • Feelings on Hold: Depression, Hypertension, Migraine, and
Phantom Pain
HYPERTENSION: A STORM BENEATH THE SURFACE
RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS
MIGRAINE, UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL
BLOOD FLOW IN MIGRAINE AND CFS
DISSOCIATION IN ASTHMA AND ALLERGIES
PHANTOM PAIN: CONTRASTING CASES
ULCER: ANOTHER SHADE OF THICK BOUNDARY PAIN
NOT KNOWING YOUR FEELINGS: ALEXITHYMIA
DEPRESSION KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES
TREATING DEPRESSION
CHAPTER 6 • Finding Your Boundary Type
THE BOUNDARY QUESTIONNAIRE
SHORT FORM BOUNDARY QUESTIONNAIRE
OBTAINING YOUR SCORE
INTERESTING CORRELATIONS
CHAPTER 7 • Finding Your Remedy
TREATMENTS FOR YOUR BOUNDARY TYPE
A THUMBNAIL REFERENCE
RELIEVING A MIX OF CONDITIONS
A PRIMER ON CAM
HYPNOSIS
ACUPUNCTURE
BIOFEEDBACK
MEDITATION
YOGA
GUIDED IMAGERY
RELAXATION AND STRESS REDUCTION
YOU HAVE THE OPTIONS
CHAPTER 8 • Pushing Boundaries: Treatments beyond the Super Seven
MOVING WEST TO EAST
QI AND THE MERIDIANS
VITAL ENERGY: A FRESH PERSPECTIVE
HOW COULD ENERGY MEDICINE WORK?
TOUCH: IT’S FUNDAMENTAL
TRANSFER OF ENERGY
A REMAINING QUESTION
THE INFANT’S RESPONSE TO THE WORLD
TWO KINDS OF BODYMIND MAPS
TRAUMA AND HEALING
THE VALUE OF YOUR STORY
APPENDIX A • The Boundary Questionnaire
SCORING THE BOUNDARY QUESTIONNAIRE
APPENDIX B • Selected Studies: Supporting the Effectiveness of CAM Treatments
for the Dozen Discomforts
ACUPUNCTURE
BIOFEEDBACK
HYPNOSIS
GUIDED IMAGERY
MEDITATION
PHANTOM PAIN
YOGA
APPENDIX C • Sources for Further Information
Index
Endnotes
Bibliography
About the Authors
About Inner Traditions • Bear & Company
Copyright & Permissions
FOREWORD
People in the United States who are seeking relief from chronic and debilitating
health problems, or who want to improve their overall health, are currently
investing over $34 billion annually for alternative treatments and approaches that
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are not offered by mainstream medicine. This expenditure is a dramatic
endorsement of complementary and alternative therapies and their effectiveness
in addressing a wide variety of physical, emotional, and behavioral problems
that seriously interfere with our well-being.
A large number of chronic maladies that plague our modern lives are not the
result of germs, faulty genes, or specific traumas. They are developmental in
nature, with their roots in our emotional lives. The denial of strong feelings—a
process that often takes place completely outside of conscious awareness—can
lead to serious disturbances in our bodies’ natural processes. The result is a wide
array of symptoms and conditions that seriously compromise our ability to enjoy
healthy and productive lives. Many of these ills are disappointingly unresponsive
to the typical allopathic approaches of pharmaceuticals or surgery.
The vast amount of clinical research devoted to the investigation of alternative
health care approaches that have demonstrated their effectiveness is not well
known by the general public. Nor do many people know how to assess which
kinds of therapy or practice might best serve their needs. Your Emotional Type is
an extremely useful resource for finding one’s way to the kinds of treatments
that offer significant—and often dramatic—help to people who suffer from a
variety of chronic health problems. These conditions include allergies and
asthma, chronic pain and fatigue, depression, fibromyalgia, hypertension,
irritable bowel syndrome, migraine headache, phantom pain, rheumatoid
arthritis, the skin conditions of eczema and psoriasis, and post-traumatic stress
disorder.
Your Emotional Type succinctly reviews the relevant research on
complementary and alternative medical approaches that have been proven to
alleviate these difficulties. Most of all, it allows you to determine which kind of
treatment might be the most useful to you, based upon your emotional type, your
style of handling strong feelings, and the nature of your health problems. Your
Emotional Type provides much-needed clarity for those who have not found