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Beyond Biofeedback – Drs Elmer and Alyce Green

It seems evident that the family is an important element in any psychosomatic illness. In the first ten recoveries from Raynaud's disease that were reported to us, three of the patients were mothers who had been rejected by their sons.

The emotional trauma suffered by the women was followed within days or weeks by the appearance of Raynaud's disease. The anger and grief they experienced was blocked, not adequately recognized and handled, until temperature training released the vasospasm and simultaneously released the withheld grief.

 In recovering from migraine, patients who remember any causes whatsoever almost always remember problems associated with their families.

A striking case was recently told to us by Barbara Pearse. One of the patients she worked with was a woman with a ten-year history of migraine. She was under heavy sedation in a hospital because of the migraine problem when, having heard of our project, she sent an inquiry.

Although she could not come to Dr. Sargent's office, it was agreed that Barbara could take a temperature trainer to the hospital and work with her every day for at least a week. Barbara hoped that might help. Barbara reported that for the first few days the patient did not seem to understand what was required, most likely because she was so heavily sedated.

At last, after five days, the woman seemed to grasp what she was supposed to do and then began a rapid recovery. After five weeks she no longer required drugs, had no migraine, and looked like an entirely different person, full of energy and eager to live again.

Shortly after the problem seemed to be solved, she showed up at Barbara's office in a very depressed mood and said that she was more unhappy now than when she had had migraine. She had thought that if she could only get rid of migraine, her life would be wonderful. But now her family was falling apart.

As soon as she began to get well, fights began in their home. Her teenage daughter had neatly pinpointed the problem when she said, after one particularly bad episode between her parents, "Mother, it's too bad Dad can't act like a normal human being unless you are sick in bed."

Family therapy was recommended. The responsibility for the problem in the preceding case was not solely the patient's. With migraine, as with cancer, we can often say with truth:

 "This family has migraine, and this person, the patient, is stuck with it."