The BodyMind Approach™, medically unexplained symptoms and personal construct psychology

Abstract

This article outlines how the body produces medically unexplained symptoms (MUS). The BodyMind Approache (TBMAe) is a suggested therapeutic intervention for disrupting the expression of MUS. This is discussed in three main sections, each section relating to the previous one. First, the models of dissociation and conversion are expanded from a basis of personal construct psychology in which the body is related to psychological activities. Second, the way to release physical symptoms is to raise the levels of the awareness, in which preverbal constructs and suspended events effecting the generation of MUS are embodied. Third, TBMAe is proposed as an appropriate treatment intervention. The reasons for this are discussed by explaining how the therapeutic process breaks down dissociation and conversion models.

Clinical outcomes from The BodyMind Approach™ in the treatment of patients with medically unexplained symptoms in primary health care in England: Practice-based evidence

“…It uses the inter-relationship between body and mind for the treatment of such patients with these persistent symptoms. Further details on the approach can be found in Payne (2013b) and Lin and Payne (2014). The University's newly endorsed company P2W is the vehicle for the service with the knowledge arising from the pilot research being transferred into a real world service delivery as clinical progress reporting.…”

“…The service was free at the point of delivery. The naturalistic delivery and the lessons learned from the experience are documented in Payne (2014). This article focusses solely on an evaluation of the clinical outcomes for the patients from a small scale implementation of TBMA in the NHS.…”

Personal Constructs of Mind-Body Identity in People Who Experience Medically Unexplained Symptoms

“…The person's construing of identity is 'frozen' (Leitner, 1999) to reconstructive change, so threats continue to be managed in a limited way (Lin & Payne, 2014). It may therefore be important to give language to constructs about bodily aspects of self and connect them with more elaborated, verbal systems for making sense of self and others (Lin & Payne, 2014) in order to formulate psychological distress and embodied experience in terms of threats to identity, and facilitate the reconstructive process (Kelly, 1969).…”

“…This study hypothesised that if constructs concerning the symptoms are dissociated from the more general construct system for making sense of self and others (Lin & Payne, 2014), then this would be associated with increased levels of anxiety, as the symptom construct is less effective in making meaningful predictions about self and others. At the other extreme, if symptoms are superordinate and dominate a person's identity construct system (a form of 'enmeshment' (Pincus & Morley, 2001)), this may also be associated with increased anxiety.…”

The Routledge International Handbook of Embodied Perspectives in Psychotherapy

“…for which tests and scans come back negative, termed medically unexplained symptoms (MUS). The service is based on preliminary research (Payne and Stott, 2010) and several pilots (Payne, 2014;Lin and Payne, 2014;Payne and Brooks, 2017) of delivery with positive outcomes for patients and savings to the NHS. The intervention is termed The BodyMind Approach™ (TBMA) which employs an animated (Sheets-Johnstone, 2016) methodology emanating from dance movement psychotherapy and the recent neuroscience research (Gallese, 2011;Shore, 2012) integrating body and mind (physical and mental health).…”