Pathological Brain Patterns: The Often Forgotten Cause of Chronic Pain Conditions

Jody Stanislaw, ND

Chronic pain, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and long COVID are complex conditions with diverse yet overlapping symptoms, without a clear path for healing. Body work, counseling, acupuncture, and support groups, while helpful, often do not bring full relief. The list of supplements commonly recommended can feel overwhelming. But what if there were a more effective, singular approach that could address all of these conditions? The answer lies in the brain.

Psychophysiologic disorders (PPDs) occur when pain and/or illness is stress-related and brain-generated. Chronic pain, not linked to damage or disease, migraines, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue, and pelvic pain syndromes are just a few of the dozens of very real conditions that can be caused or exacerbated by unhealthy neural pathways in the brain. Furthermore, a lack of self-love actually contributes to these conditions as well.

Brain Patterns

Breakups, the death of a loved one, job loss, moving, and/or dealing with a global pandemic all contribute to one’s trauma load. The brain is designed to protect us. When trauma occurs, the brain activates the sympathetic nervous system. After the trauma ends, the body is supposed to revert to its default, calm, parasympathetic state.

However, as life’s stresses accumulate and the trauma bucket fills—or even overflows—the brain can become stuck in a constant state of fight or flight, leading to a wide range of physical symptoms. This can happen even to individuals who handle stress well. It is estimated that 1 in 6 adults and 1 in 3 primary care patients are affected by a chronic fight-or-flight response.¹ This could mean that over 30% of your patients may be suffering from this overlooked root cause of chronic symptoms.

A Personal Story

In her autobiography, Dying to Be Me, Anita Moorjani shares how her body became riddled with cancerous tumors. She prayed to be healed. She consulted countless doctors, but found no success. Eventually, she fell into a coma. Hovering between life and death, Moorjani experienced a profound realization: the root of her illness was not merely physical but deeply spiritual. Her illness was a manifestation of her self-hatred and fear, a reflection of living out of alignment with her true self.²

In that moment of clarity, she understood that the key to her healing and transformation was self-love. When she awoke from the coma, the tumors she had been battling for years shrank by 70% within 4 days. Within 5 weeks, she was cancer-free.

Moorjani writes, “I realized that my physical condition reflected my internal state. If I were going to change my physical condition, I would first have to change my internal state. And to do that, I had to love myself unconditionally.”

As Moorjani’s story illustrates, the rewards of self-love are profound and immeasurable. When we learn to love ourselves fully and unconditionally, we become more attuned to our needs and desires, more capable of setting healthy boundaries and making choices that align with our true selves. This fosters inner peace and contentment, radiates outward, and significantly enhances the body’s natural ability to heal.

Everything in the universe is made of energy, including love. Love is a vibrational frequency. When we lack love for ourselves, our bodies lack the vibrancy needed to heal completely. Our physical well-being suffers because we are unable to harness the healing energy within us.

A study published in the Psychology Research and Behavior Management Journal found that self-compassion is a critical factor in successfully treating a range of mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. By learning to treat ourselves with kindness and understanding, individuals can develop greater emotional resilience and cultivate a more positive self-image.³

For many patients with chronic illness, traditional approaches often focus solely on managing symptoms rather than addressing root causes. The good news is that, after years of clinical research, the new pain psychology approach is offering dramatic relief for a wide array of chronic conditions, moving beyond mere symptom management to actual healing. This understanding comes from the new science of “unexplained” chronic pain. Still, it can apply to any neuroplastic symptoms, such as chronic fatigue syndrome, long COVID, migraines, gastrointestinal symptoms (such as IBS, gastritis), numbness, tingling, buzzing, dizziness, nausea, anxiety, depression, brain fog, and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.

Essential Keys for Healing and Rewiring the Brain

Patients need to understand the science that explains where their mysterious symptoms are coming from. It should be explained that neuroplastic symptoms result from a hypervigilant nervous system, rather than damage to the body (or neuropathic pain). These symptoms arise from the brain’s signaling system overreacting to normal, safe stimuli. 

How can we differentiate between a genuine physical issue and one caused by the brain? The more “Yes” answers to the following questions, the more likely it is that the root cause lies in the brain: 

• Have a wide range of diagnostic tests come back unremarkable?
• Have physical treatments been administered for over 6 weeks with no improvement?
• Does the patient have multiple symptoms that have persisted for more than 6 months?
• Are symptoms present in various parts of the body, and do they tend to move around?
• Are symptoms worsened by stress and relieved by joyful activities?
• Does the patient self-describe as highly detail-oriented, self-critical, perfectionistic, and/or someone who tends to prioritize the needs of others?
• If childhood stress was present, are the people who caused this stress still in their lives?
• Does the patient describe their life as highly stressful?
• Are depression and anxiety frequently present in their life?
• Did symptoms begin soon after a traumatizing event?
• Does the patient have a high adverse childhood experience score?

Patients need reassurance that their body is likely not damaged or diseased. Patients need to feel hope. They may feel encouraged and reshape their belief system by listening to testimonials from individuals who have recovered from something similar, thinking, “I, too, can improve.” Many inspiring videos can be found on the Psychophysiologic Disorders Association website.⁴

Although many chronic disease patients often have unremarkable lab results, some do exhibit “legitimate signs,” such as in cases of chronic viral infection. However, it’s important to look at the cause of many viral breakouts: stress. Yes, the infection is real, but the underlying cause is stress.

Patients must do the work to look without judgment at their past to understand how their brain developed its current patterns. They also need to acknowledge present sources of stress in their lives, particularly in areas they might not immediately recognize. This deeper internal investigation is a crucial part of the healing process.

Once the above steps have been completed—and not before—the patient is ready to apply healing tools. There are many practical tools available to break the cycle of the brain alerting them to their chronic, and frankly outdated, stuck-in-the-past symptoms.

#1: Self-Compassion

Patients must learn self-compassion for where they are in life, for what they have been through, and for being human with legitimate struggles. It is essential to cultivate a deep love and kindness for oneself at one’s core. Key elements include: 

• Decreasing the pressure one puts on oneself, which in turn decreases the fear response in the brain
• Accepting that one deserves to be happy and healthy, and needs to set boundaries
• Allowing oneself to feel and express anger in a healthy and safe way
• Recognizing that it’s impossible to be perfect or to be in control of everything

#2: Analyzing Core Beliefs

Core beliefs are a person’s most deeply held assumptions about themselves, the world, and other people. They determine the degree to which one sees oneself as worthy, safe, competent, powerful, and loved; they shape one’s reality and behaviors. Being willing to uncover and analyze what these core beliefs are and to get support to optimize them is key to healing. If one does not believe they are worthy of vibrant health, lasting healing cannot—will not—occur.

#3: Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy

Emotional awareness and expression therapy reframes emotions from being viewed as bad, dangerous, or needing avoidance, to recognizing they are healthy and normal and not harmful to express. This shift creates a new perspective for the brain to experience.

Many healing tools fall under the umbrella of emotional awareness and expression therapy, such as expressive writing, unsent letters, rewriting childhood memories from a compassionate adult perspective, or healthily expressing oneself.

The tool of expressive writing is a powerful way to release suppressed emotions that have become stuck in the body, which are often at the root cause of chronic physical symptoms. Anger is one of the most common suppressed emotions since it is frequently not allowed to be expressed, especially in childhood.

In this approach, which is very different from classic journaling, the patient writes in a stream of consciousness about any past experiences that still evoke strong emotions—childhood stressors, adulthood stressors, and even challenging personality traits, such as perfectionism, controlling, or people-pleasing. The patient should write as fast and freely as possible while tuning into really feeling the emotions around these memories. Complete sentences are not necessary. Scribbling is often a more effective way to get emotions out, to circumvent having the rational part of the brain get involved. They keep moving the pen, thinking about any painful memories, really allowing themselves to feel the emotions. They are to proceed until they find themselves feeling calm. This can take five minutes, or twenty minutes, or more. 

Once the charged emotions have calmed, the patient then flips the page over to write out more calming and accepting thoughts about these experiences. This acceptance step focuses on acknowledging fundamental truths about life, such as adopting this kind of thinking:

“The world is what it is: an imperfect place, much of which I cannot change. Every human deals with challenging emotions, thoughts, and worries. We are all doing the best we can with the tools we have, including the people who have wronged me. Perhaps they were doing the best they could. That is all I can expect of myself, too.”

The next step in expressive writing is to uncover the lessons gained from these experiences that can serve as benefits in the future. Patients can learn a lot by asking themselves questions, such as: 

• What stress have I taken on that does not belong to me? 
• What responsibilities can I let go of? 
• What patterns of thought or behavior are weighing me down? 
• What are new patterns I could adopt, in times of stress and in my life in general, that would serve me better? 
• What new thoughts and beliefs do I want to live by?

The final step is to dispose of the papers. This is key! If the brain believes someone else will read what was written, or there is a chance the writer will reread it and ruminate over the content, the brain will continue to hold on to negative memories and heavy emotions. Shred them, crumple them, or burn them—whatever it takes.

Patients are initially recommended to do this practice daily, even for a few minutes. Most have so many layers of stored emotions that it could take weeks until the patient feels a real shift, such as a newfound lightness of being and a reduction in symptoms. As time goes on, this is an excellent way to process challenging emotions anytime they occur. Expressive writing is a safe and private way to help patients ensure their emotions are felt and released in a healthy way, to avoid having them get stuck in the body.

#4: Techniques for Calming the Nervous System

Important regular—if not daily—steps for healing from psychophysiologic disorders can include performing breathing exercises, meditation, healthy social connections, listening to music, singing, laughter, dancing, expressing gratitude, walking, and prioritizing joy in daily life. Just as staying physically fit is a lifetime process, so is maintaining mental fitness, especially for patients with psychophysiologic disorders. In addition to the resources available from the Psychophysiology Disorders Association, the online Gupta Program offers brain-retraining via the power of neuroplasticity for patients with chronic conditions.⁵

When patients can heal from their past, learn to be kind and loving to themselves, and adopt daily habits that bring them joy and make them smile, their bodies will remember how to heal. Let us not forget that one of the most powerful healing tools we have is LOVE.

References

1. Haller H, Cramer H, Lauche R, et al. Somatoform disorders and medically unexplained symptoms in primary care. Dtsch Arztebl Int. 2015;112(16):279.287.
2. Moorjani A. Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing. Hay House. 2012.
3. Crego A, Yela JR, Riesco-Matias P, et al. The benefits of self-compassion in mental health professionals. A systematic review of empirical research. Psychol Res Behav Manag. 2022;15:2599-2620.
4. Psychophysiology Disorders Association. https://ppdassociation.org/.
5. Gupta Program. https://guptaprogram.com.

Resources

• Your Brain. Who’s In Control? NOVA PBS Documentary. Written by Jason Sussberg. Directed by David Alvarado and Jason Sussberg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ6VOOd73MA.
• The Power of the Placebo. BBC Documentary. BBC Horizon. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3q4ale
• Videos by Dr. Howard Schubiner, including:
  • Breakthrough with Healing Chronic Pain. Talks at Google. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VyH1laOd2M
• Unlearn Your Pain. Schubiner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYz_ApWYeg0