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Your Emotional Type

Key to the Therapies That Will Work for You

Published by Healing Arts
Distributed by Simon & Schuster

LIST PRICE ₹456.00

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About The Book

Your emotional type as the means to finding the right treatment for your chronic illness or pain

• Provides an easy questionnaire to find your emotional type

• Identifies the connections between emotional type and 12 common chronic ailments: asthma, allergies, chronic fatigue, depression, fibromyalgia, hypertension, irritable bowel, migraines, PTSD, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and ulcers

• Explains which of 7 mind/body healing therapies works best for each emotional type

Different people process their feelings in different ways--your emotional style is a fundamental aspect of who you are. It affects more than just your outlook on life; it can affect your well-being as well. Many chronic ailments are not the result of germs or genes but are rooted in our emotional biology. The link between emotional type and health explains why modern medicine--which views treatment as “one size fits all”--often fails to successfully treat chronic pain and illness.

Examining the interplay of emotions, chronic illness and pain, and treatment success, Michael Jawer and Dr. Marc Micozzi reveal how chronic conditions are intrinsically linked to certain emotional types and how these ailments are best treated by choosing a healing therapy in line with your type. Explaining the emotional ties behind the 12 most common chronic illnesses--asthma, allergies, chronic fatigue, depression, fibromyalgia, hypertension, irritable bowel syndrome, migraines, post-traumatic stress disorder, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and ulcers--the authors provide an easy assessment survey that allows you to identify your emotional type as well as the ailments you are susceptible to. Extending this connection between mind and body, they assess 7 alternative healing therapies--acupuncture, hypnosis, biofeedback, meditation, yoga, guided imagery, and relaxation techniques--and indicate which methods work best for each emotional type. Empowering you as a patient to seek out the therapies that will work best for you, this book offers a welcome path to effective pain relief and sustainable health.

Excerpt

Chapter 4
Boundary Similarities and Differences

Chronic Fatigue, Fibromyalgia, Irritable Bowel, and PTSD


Here are some words to the wise: “When we ignore what matters most to us, it will become the matter within us.” This observation, from psychotherapist Paula Reeves, is perfectly in sync with our understanding that our mind and our body effectively are one bodymind.

“What matters most” is the aspect of our life in which we have the most emotional investment, whether or not we consciously realize it. Feelings are a form of energy that is at the core of our selves; if we ignore those feelings or tell them to go away, they won’t simply leave without a trace. On the contrary, because they relate to what’s highly meaningful, they will hang around. They will bide their time. And they will find a way to become known. As Reeves puts it, they will become the “matter within”--and a potentially unhealthful matter at that.

Through the concept of bodymind, we understand that no complete and utter secrets exist within us. “Gut feelings” have an inner reality, and an inner legitimacy, even though they emanate from our “second brain” down below rather than the upstairs brain with which we’re more familiar. A blush, a rash, a migraine, a bout of chronic pain or fatigue--these are all ways that “what matters” within is made manifest. So, too, are such conditions as asthma, depression, hypertension, phantom pain, rheumatoid arthritis, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Feelings (as we gathered in chapter 2) flow like water. In people whose boundaries are thinner, this flow is quicker and more direct. In people who have thicker boundaries, the flow is slower and less direct. Given the differences inherent in boundary type, we can imagine that the stream of feeling will meander different places and cause different effects from person to person. In one person it may pool in a particular locale or ripple over into a tributary. In another person it may cascade freely. In a third person, the flow may be slowed--dammed up, even.

The characteristic way that someone literally feels is bound to influence his or her bodymind symptoms. In many cases a chronic condition comes to reflect the state of things. If we look closely at these conditions we will see not only the force of emotion at work but also that boundary type can be linked with the given ailment. Thus, knowing your boundary type is a key to the types of chronic illness for which you’re at risk, a key just as important, if not more so, than your much-discussed genotype. When we look at chronic health conditions through the lens of emotion, the ways that they take root (causes) and the ways that they can be resolved (treatments) are illuminated.

PTSD: A New View


Let’s contrast the person afflicted with CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) with the case of someone affected by PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). At first glance they seem to be opposites: a mysterious malaise that portends who-knows-what (CFS) versus a highly immediate, riveting “replay” of a terrifying event that’s all too clear (PTSD). Furthermore, whereas the person with CFS may have a tough time getting to sleep, the person with PTSD may be awoken by nightmares. And while the CFS sufferer is likely to ignore her needs while carrying out a project or serving others, the person with PTSD is prone to feeling irritable, to being overtaken by sudden bouts of anger, and to displaying hyper-vigilance and hyperarousal.

The fascinating thing about PTSD (though obviously distressing to the person burdened by it) is how he essentially relives the traumatic event as though it’s a clear and present danger. The sights, sounds, smells and--especially--feelings are brought into visceral reality. What could cause this re-experiencing to be so vivid when, for someone suffering under the weight of CFS, it’s unclear what, if anything, lurks behind the fog?

The concept of boundaries allows us to evaluate PTSD in an entirely new way. Let’s start by assuming it is a thin boundary condition. The biological evidence supports this proposition. The level of serotonin in PTSD sufferers is low compared to individuals with CFS. Serotonin can be seen as a rough indicator of the state of activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, or HPA axis. The key thing to realize is that, while nature may predispose some of us to be especially low reacting or especially high reacting, genetics are not the whole story. The functioning of the HPA axis--which represents our stress activation system--changes based on environmental influences. A lesser amount of serotonin indicates a stress reactivity threshold that is fairly low, reflecting the thin boundary personality. A higher amount of serotonin points to the higher threshold, thick boundary personality.

The reactive nature of the thin boundary person with PTSD is captured by the following remark from a combat veteran. The smell of gunpowder, he said, not only makes him feel hot, “It’s as if my whole metabolism changes.” What he experiences is intense as well as instantaneous.

Here is what we surmise is taking place in cases of PTSD. When a thin boundary person is physically assaulted, the stirred up feelings don’t just recede into the bodymind, as they do with someone who has a thick boundary. They form a tight knot, a kind of stone in the energetic stream. (Contrast this by picturing CFS as a condition where the feelings are walled off or dammed up.) When the person is reminded of the original event, the feeling “current” pushes the stone to the surface, where it evokes a frightening replay of the trauma in the here and now.

Ultimately, boundaries make the entire difference. Chronic fatigue syndrome gathers force out-of-awareness of a thick boundary person. But with PTSD, the person’s thinner boundaries allow for a much more immediate retrieval of the dissociated energy, so much so that the replayed experience feels almost identical to the original trauma.

About The Authors

Michael A. Jawer is an emotion researcher and expert on “sick building syndrome.” He is the coauthor, with Marc Micozzi, of The Spiritual Anatomy of Emotion. He lives in Vienna, Virginia.

Marc S. Micozzi, M.D., Ph.D., is adjunct professor of pharmacology and physiology at Georgetown University School of Medicine and the founding director of the Policy Institute for Integrative Medicine in Washington, D.C. The author and editor of Fundamentals of Complementary & Alternative Medicine and coauthor of The Spiritual Anatomy of Emotion, Your Emotional Type, New World Mindfulness, and Avicenna's Medicine, he lives in Maryland.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Healing Arts (October 19, 2011)
  • Length: 194 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781594778025

Raves and Reviews

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

“There is a ton of resources given so that it would be fairly easy to follow-up and find what is going to work best for you. This is a great handbook that will be useful to anyone working with chronic conditions. Perfect gift for therapists, physicians, body workers, and for people with various conditions.”

– New Spirit Journal, December 2011

“This is a break-through book which heralds the next growth phase in alternative treatment and wellness.”

– Anna Jedrzieski, Retailing Insights, December 2011

“A convincing guide meant to supplement professional medical care”

– Betty-Lee Fox, Library Journal, January 2012

“...an interesting hybrid: a science-based book, back-end loaded with references, that is also self-help and filled with useful resources.”

– Integrative Medicine, January 2012

“With very clear and concise language, this book will give all those who read it a running start to find the correct therapy to help heal themselves, thereby saving important and sometimes crucial time.”

– Dhara Lemos, Lotus Guide, January 2012

Your Emotional Type is a wake-up call for those who are stuck in stubborn emotional prisons of fear, anger, resentment, regret, and self-destruction.”

– Spirituality & Practice, January 2012

“In a field that’s filled with self-help and therapy books, Your Emotional Type stands out as a special gift, succinct with great clarity and bringing to those in need a more direct and realistic route to their personal therapeutic salvation.”

– The Amazing Kreskin

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 Th

“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

“Micozzi has first-hand experience with the connection between emotional type and chronic illness as he suffered from a chronic condition and effectively resolved it with alternative therapies based on his emotional boundary type. If you suffer from a chronic condition, this short book filled with helpful advice is worth a try.”

– Kristy Musalo, New Connexion, June 2012

Your Emotional Type is a valuable contribution to the healing arts and self–care literature. Along with their previous book, The Spiritual Anatomy of Emotion, it deserves a wide readership.”

– Daniel Redwood, Health Insights Today, August 2012

“. . . a simple, practical, and useful guide to help doctors and their patients identify the major alternative therapies that will work best for each person.”

– Kenneth R. Pelletier, Ph.D., M.D., clinical professor of medicine, University of Arizona and Univers

“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 B

“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

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