Can your therapist go meta?
Questions to drive metasystematic problem solving
Something I've noticed is that every specialist sees pain through their own lens:
Physiotherapist: "It's muscular imbalance"
Doctor: "It's biochemical"
IFS therapist: "It's your exiled child part"
Where are the people who can move between the different systems?
What I think I really wanted — what I needed — was someone who could recognize both that prostaglandins increase the sensitivity of your wrist tendons, but also that maybe your nervous system has learned to predict pain in situations where it feels under threat. That sure, your head slumped forward might be putting pressure on your sternocleidomastoids, but also: you’re really afraid of your boss.
I guess this is what ‘integrative medicine’ is supposed to be. But unfortunately this wasn’t what I found.
For all the mention of ‘science based medicine’, it seems to me that the majority of therapists I’ve come across have not been taught to take a pragmatic, empirical approach.
Can you make hypotheses about what is causing discomfort, and track what works for your body?
Can you let go of needing to find a ‘true cause’ and tinker until you find what works?
Can you be a solution architect for your own life?
These are the questions I’m most interested in asking.
You can get metasystematic with our Pain Debugging Protocol and if you get stuck, we have a couple spots for 1:1 work too.
I really enjoyed this tiny little piece