What is Diversion Pain Syndrome ?
Diversion Pain Syndrome is a defense mechanism of your brain.
Yes, your brain has a function to protect you. For both physical as well as emotional danger. In case of physical danger, you will flee, fight or freeze. But the brain also has a protective function for emotional danger.
Emotional danger can be anything that will remind you of what hurt you, or of unpleasant events or situations from the past or present.
Depending on your character type, your brain creates a diversion mechanism to give you physical pain in order to prevent you from feeling emotional pain. Result: Emotions are being repressed.
Smart brain, but not really helpful.
What is Diversion Pain Syndrome?
Ask a person who is suffering from chronic back pain the question: ‘What started your pain?’ It will often be something like; ‘I made a wrong movement and heard a snap in my back’.
Then they go to the doctor, get medications, physical therapy and when the pain doesn’t go away, they get a scan and that’s how years of suffering often begins.
The scan will in many cases give some kind of ‘diagnosis’.
What many people don’t know, is that Diversion Pain Syndrome (DPS) can also cause physical pain.
How stress, tension and repressed emotions play a role
It is very natural to bury uncomfortable emotions. These are emotions that we “should not” feel or that we think our friends and families will not accept, understand or appreciate. The emotions that are being repressed are considered ‘dangerous’ by the brain as they will remind you of what hurt you. In most instances, we are not aware that we are even repressing these emotions. It’s as if they don’t exist.
How self-image plays a role in getting diversion pain
If you are the type of character that has difficulties with negative emotions, especially anger and rage, you might have created a habit of repressing emotions. This is not something you do on purpose; it happens outside of your awareness.
It is very common in our society to bury emotions, especially when the emotion of anger and rage is inconsistent with our own self-image. Instead of recognizing and processing the emotion, we repress it. And that’s how our brain creates an internal defense mechanism consisting of a distraction to divert our attention away from the hidden emotion with something physical like pain.
The pain is real!
The pain is not ‘in your head’. The pain is real and is often debilitating for the individual suffering from it. DPS is a way to cope and not feel the emotion. It is a so-called psycho-physical syndrome. It starts in the brain, diverts your attention away from uncomfortable emotions and leads to physical changes in the body, which lead to real physical pain, tingling, burning, numbness and/or weakness.
Science has proven that scans rarely indicate the cause of pain
When a pain sufferer is getting a scan, there’s always something found on a scan or MRI. Research has shown that this is rarely the cause of pain. In 2015 research was published on over 3000 MRIs of asymptomatic people (no back pain) and what was found was, that structural abnormalities like herniated discs, bulging discs, sciatica, spinal stenosis and many others are more likely to be a normal sign of aging. This is not the only research that is out there. There’s so much more research available that scans rarely indicate the cause of pain.
The key to understanding DPS is to first allow yourself to believe the science that has proven that subacute and chronic pain is usually not caused by structural abnormalities. When pain becomes chronic, it means that other factors are at play. Chronic physical pain is very often caused by stress, tension and emotions. Especially repressed emotions involving anger and rage.
How a psycho-physical process can end the pain safely
The great news is that the psycho-physical process of DPS is extremely easy to reverse. It is very simple to learn to rapidly and easily recognize these emotions. Once you recognize the buried emotions there is no longer any need for the diversion and the pain & other physical symptoms abate. The process is easy. Most people can get rid of months, years or even decades of pain in a short amount of time.
Even the New York Times and Washington Post talk about this
Recently a series of articles have been published on the subject of chronic pain and repressed emotions in the New York Times as well as in the Washington Post. The mechanism of how stress and tension cause pain has been described already years ago in multiple books, but it’s finally finding it’s way to the larger public.
The solution to chronic pain exists. It exists today.
What have you got to lose? Schedule a risk free, 30 minute consultation without obligation and get some feedback on your specific situation.