Recent Posts
With every word I release, I free my heart and return to myself.
Expression Pain has a way of becoming a quiet tenant—settling into the soft chambers of the mind, curling into the ...
Suicide – A Horrible Way to Escape from Pain
Objectives The root cause of suicide is feeling trapped and mental and physical pain are problematic.significant reasons to feel this ...
Be Heard to Heal
You must understand the nature of a problem before you can solve it. It is well-publicized that over 100 million ...
Evolution of the DOC Framework
DOC beginning The DOC (Direct your Own Care) program evolved after I discovered that, through a systematic approach that addressed ...
Begin Your Healing Journey at Home
It has become increasingly apparent to me that chronic pain is a family issue. Your deepest human interactions happen at ...
Honoring Loss by Living
Objectives: Life is full of loss and unfulfilled wishes. Sehnsucht is intense regret. Stress of a deep loss can trigger ...
Create a Safe Haven – Family
Pain = Frustration. In the presence of unrelenting pain this frustration can be intense. Anger is a survival reaction and it ...
Let’s Wake Up
Overview Our conscious brain interprets our internal bodily sensations. Since we are geared to survive, most of our time is ...
The Gift of Pain – Thanksgiving 2013
Pain, The Gift That Nobody Wants is a book written by an orthopedic hand surgeon, Paul Brand. Through his work ...
“I Want to Believe”
Florence, Italy My wife lived in Florence, Italy from 1983 to 1990. She is fluent in Italian and some of ...
Understand RUTs (Repetitive Unwanted Thoughts) and Solve Them
I am excited about my recent insights that have emerged from writing my new book on RUTs. It will be ...
Connect to Your Dark Side and Heal – Joy will Emerge
Overview Your survival reactions are meant to be deeply unpleasant, since they are protective danger signals. You have absolutely no ...
Stage 1 - Lay the Foundation
Select a step from the dropdown menu below to view the posts in that step. The steps are:
Step 1 - Learn About Your Pain
Step 2 - Expressive Writing
Step 3 - Active Meditation
Step 4 - Sleep
Step 5 - Don't Share Your Pain
Your Hand Stuck Over the Stove
I often encounter a perplexing situation: A patient experiencing severe chronic pain on my spine intake questionnaire rates him or ...
Verbal “Expressive Writing”
Freely writing your thoughts and immediately destroying them has been the starting point for almost every person I have seen ...
Marsha’s Three Unnecessary Spine Surgeries
Marsha was a 36 year-old businesswoman with two young children. She was referred to me by another patient and came ...
David Hanscom’s Mission and Resources
My mission falls into two broad categories. Connect mainstream medicine with existing science – most symptoms, illness and disease are ...
There is an Answer to the Mental Health Crisis
Objectives Avoiding danger is what keeps us alive. Humans call this signal anxiety. Avoiding this sensation drives much of dysfunctional ...
My Descent Into The Abyss
Objectives There are many different physical and mental symptoms that are possible when you are in sustained flight or fight ...
Charley’s Story: Pain Free After 17 Doctors
This is a story of a middle-aged gentleman who became pain free using DOC Process principles. Although, he saw me ...
Processing Anxiety/ Frustration – They are not Going Away
Objectives Providing yourself with cues of safety is essential to healing. However, your body instinctively gravitates towards being aware ...
Not Just Another Pain Conference – The 2nd Annual Pain Summit
2nd Annual Pain Summit – Feb 26th and 27th, 2022 There is a growing group of health care professionals who ...
Eliminate the Word, “Anxiety”
Objectives Anxiety is at the core of how we evolved and continue to survive. It is a gift. It is ...
“The Curse of Consciousness” – Trapped by Your Thoughts
Objectives: Unpleasant thoughts are impossible to avoid and can significantly impact your quality of life. They are a “neurological trick” ...
Anxiety is the Pain
Objectives: Anxiety is the sensation generated when you feel unsafe, and your body’s chemistry is stimulated into a fight or ...
Common Links to Chronic Disease – RUTs are Relentless
Objectives: Understanding the nature of chronic disease and the principles behind the solutions, allows you to fully engage in your ...
Dynamic Healing
A new, data-based dynamic approach is needed for medicine to successfully deal with our epidemic of chronic disease. It must ...
Threat versus Safety Physiology
Lesson Objectives Consider ongoing environmental input separately from your body’s responses. Understand the essence of illness/ disease is sustained exposure ...
Let’s Start Now and Learn the Details Later
Lesson Objectives There is deep basic science research that has revealed the nature of chronic pain and this understanding will ...
Select a step from the dropdown menu below to view the posts in that step. The steps are:
Step 1 - Understand the Impact of Anger on Your Life
Step 2 - Acknowledge Your Disguises
Step 3 - Admit Your Victimhood
Step 4 - Choose Not to Remain a Victim
Step 5 - Forgive
Step 6 - Play
“5–3–2” – Processing Anger in Three Steps
Objectives Anxiety is an unpleasant sensation generated by your body’s physiological response to real or perceived danger. It compels you ...
Gun Violence – No Action in a Reaction
Our society continues to wring its hands over ongoing problem of gun violence. The bigger problem is the that of ...
From “Would Like” to “Should” – The Unenforceable Rules
Objectives: Our core life outlook is programmed by every second of our life to the present moment. Each person has ...
Grievance Stories
Objectives All of us are “wronged” every day and often multiple times. The wrongs may be real or perceived. Your ...
Forgiveness is Not What You Think – Learn It
Objectives Forgiveness does not have to be that difficult. You are simply making a choice of not letting a situation ...
Healing through Play – It is Safety Physiology
Objectives Connecting with your sense of play is one of the most powerful ways of shifting your physiology from threat ...
Calming Yourself by Recruiting the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS)
Written in conjunction with Dr. Les Aria, PhD Objectives Every function and action of your body is in a delicate ...
From Reactive to Creative
Objectives Anytime you are anxious or frustrated, something from the past has invaded the present. By definition, you cannot be ...
Anger Academy
Objectives Processing anger is more doable if it is broken down into its components. Anger is a powerful, necessary, and ...
Blocks to Letting Go of Anger
Objectives Anger is a hard wired automatic survival reaction, and it is impossible to get rid of, conquer, or transform ...
The Ultimate Victim Role – Perfectionism
Objectives Perfectionism is felt by many of us to be a virtue. It is reflected in terms of, “high standards,” ...
The Impact of Anger on Your Life – and Pain
Objectives Most patients in chronic pain are frustrated and angry, whether they recognize it or not. Why wouldn’t they be? ...
Mortal Combat – These People are Hurting Each Other
In The DOC Journey, we have observed that the “shortcut” to healing is letting go of anger. You are then ...
Experiencing Safety: Solving Chronic Pain: An Immersive Weekend Retreat
We are holding a weekend retreat on May 21-23, 2021 based on our past experiences at the Omega institute in ...
Anger and Illness–Cause and Effect
Tom’s original story was one that I never thought was possible. He recounts his journey of undergoing 28 surgeries over ...
Three Aspects of Processing Anger
This aspect of The DOC (Direct your Own Care) Journey is by far and away the most critical leg. I ...
Stage 3 - Move Forward
Select a step from the dropdown menu below to view the posts in that step. The steps are:
Step 1 - Commit to a Daily Practice
Step 2 - Create a Safe Haven - Family
Step 3 - Get Organized
Step 4 - Connect with the Life You Want
Step 5 - Create Your Vision
No One Can Take Away Your Holiday Joy – But You
Dealing with Holiday Triggers This blog is written in conjunction with Dr. Les Aria, who is an experienced pain psychologist ...
Do You Feel Safe in Your Own Home?
One of the most basic human needs in addition to survival is to feel safe. Of course, the two go ...
Your Relationship to Food and Life
Objectives Our view of the world and our place in it is programmed in from the moment we are born ...
Heal by Connecting with Others
Objectives Social isolation is both a contributing factor to anxiety and also a result of it. When you are suffering, ...
The Golden State Warriors and the “Ironic Effect”
We all know that when you try not to think about something, you’ll think about it more. Most of us ...
Commit to a Daily Practice
Objectives Most of us strongly commit to making concrete changes at beginning of a New Year. Why can’t we follow ...
Feel the Life You Want
Objectives Your brain is incredibly neuroplastic and can change quickly in whatever direction you choose. We automatically know how to ...
Repetition and Healing
Objectives Learning any new material or skill is an active process than can only be acquired through repetition. There are ...
Your Life’s Roadmap – Just Begin Anywhere
Objectives Long term change always occurs in small steps and requires persistence. The reason is that our behaviors today are ...
Get Organized – Chronic Pain is Complex
Objectives Chronic mental and physical pain is a complex problem that requires a systematic approach to solve. How can you ...
Create Your “Personal Business Plan”
Objectives Most of us have become so used to solving problems and just making ends meet that we have lost ...
Connect with the Life You Want
Objectives It is easy to become focused on problems to the point where you forget what you really want out ...
Exercise Improves Your Health, Quality of Life, and Lifespan
Objectives: Regular exercise is a defined and to measurably lower inflammation, which will decrease your pain. It is basic to ...
Tune Your Nervous System and Lower Anxiety – You have the controls
KEY POINTS When stresses overwhelm the coping capacity of your nervous system, your body will go into flight or fight ...
Awareness–Ingrained Patterns/ Your Life Lens
Objectives A basic trait of human consciousness is to give meaning to everything from objects to experiences. These perceptions and ...
Deadly Nature of Pursuing Ego
Objectives Much of our identity revolves around the “stories” we create to make sense out of the world. Many, if ...
Stage 4 Posts - Expand Your Consciousness
Select a step from the dropdown menu below to view the posts in that step. The steps are:
Step 1 - Pass Through the "Ring of Fire"
Step 2 - Step Into Your New Life
Step 3 - "Failing" Well
Step 4 - Look Up - Your Spiritual Journey
Step 5 - Giving Back is Healing
“Don’t Worry, Be Happy”
A way into “The Abyss” of chronic illness The title of this song1 is a common way many of us ...
Your “Authentic Self”
The only “authentic self” that exists is the one who is present today – right this very second. Your actions ...
Connecting the past and present to the future – Bruce Lipton and David Hanscom
Chronic mental and physical disease are connected by a common root cause – stress. How and why? Stress (threat) creates ...
Romanticizing Pirates – Normalizing Suffering and Abuse
Each year we return to Italy to spend time with some of our close friends. My wife lived there for ...
Giving Back is Healing
Objectives You probably have been trapped by anxiety for so long, and consumed by trying to find a way out, ...
“Better Not Look Down”
Objectives We are programmed by every second of our life up to this moment with most of it being around ...
Awareness as a Tool – The “Circle of Life”
Objectives Awareness is at the center of life. You cannot make good decisions without understanding the relevant variables. It is ...
Not Being Judgmental–Not Possible
Objectives Human consciousness precludes suppressing thoughts and emotions without experiencing physiological consequences. You may intellectually understand that being judgmental is ...
The Gift of Anxiety – Your Bodyguard or Prison Guard?
Objectives: Since the body’s response to threats affects every cell in your body, it feels like part of who you ...
The Bidirectional Interaction between Resilience and Your Immune System
This blog is based on a review paper written by Dr. Robert Dantzer that discusses how resilience and immunity influence ...
Navigating the Entire Circle of Your Life
The DOC (Direct your Own Care) Journey is a collection of resources that reflect the ones many people have used ...
Pain: the Gift Nobody Wants
I have felt that it is important to pick out heroes to emulate. One person that I have greatly admired ...
“Play 20” – Create Your Life at Any Age
Maurice is someone who I recently met and immediately was intrigued by his demeanor and outlook. My wife and I ...
Thrive and Survive–The Movement
I have launched a major effort to change the way we think about disease; whether it is mental for physical ...
Expanding Your Horizon–Your New Life
The DOC process evolved from my own, mostly futile, attempts to both figure out how I fell off a cliff ...
Thrive and Survive COVID-19: The Polyvagal Approach
The main problem with the COVID-19 virus is not that we catch it, but that that it can kill you ...
Select a step from the dropdown menu below to view the posts in that step. The steps are:
Step 1 - General Principles - The Grid
Step 2 - The Source of Your Pain
Step 3 - The Impact of Stress on Your Pain and Decision-making
Step 4 - Understanding the Magnitude of the Surgery
Step 5 - Making the Final Surgical Decision
Step 6 - Stories of Surgical Despair
Make the Right Decision About Spine Surgery – The Grid
Surgery on a normal neck?? Last week, I reviewed the films of a young girl who had been in a ...
Phantom Brain Pain – “The Doctor is Missing Something”
Any skill in life, mental or physical is first learned and then embedded in our brains with repetition. This is ...
Humans Aren’t Data Points – Modern Medicine is Hurting Us
There is deep basic science and clinical research that documents effective treatments for chronic mental and physical disease. Most of ...
Tulsa Shooting – “The Pit of Despair”
Preston Phillips, the spine surgeon shot this week in Tulsa, was a colleague of mine in Seattle. I did not ...
Surgical Stories of Despair
I quit my surgical spine practice in 2019 because I was seeing so much surgery performed on normally aging spines ...
Never Too Late for Hope
This letter was sent to me by a woman that I have corresponded with a few times but I have ...
Know Your Surgeon – Well
When the DOC project began to evolve in 1999 it was my feeling that if there was a structural problem that it ...
Dashed Hopes
Mainstream medicine is frequently not offering you effective care. Many procedures performed for spinal problems have been documented to be ...
Avoids a Five-level Neck Fusion
I received this email from a physical therapist on the East Coast, who I’ve never met. He’d heard about my ...
Prehab – Optimizing Surgical Outcomes
“Prehab” is refers to a patient engaging in a rehabilitation process before surgery. There are well-documented factors that affect pain ...
Eight-Level Spine Fusion? No!
A seventy-three-year-old woman—let’s call her Dorothy for the sake of this story—was understandably apprehensive. She had just been told that ...
Surgery is the Definitive Solution?
Ernie presented to me a few years ago with severe back and leg pain. He had undergone two spine fusions ...
When will the Pain Stop?
Mike is a local physical therapist who is a friend of mine. He has been interested in the DOC project ...
Are You Kidding Me? – ILL Advised Spine Surgery
Patients and physicians are frequently making illogical decisions regarding spine surgery. I have watched this phenomenon steadily worsen for over ...
Structural Sciatica Resolved Without Surgery
When I published the first edition of my book, Back in Control: A Spine Surgeon’s Surgeon’s Roadmap Out of Chronic Pain in 2012, I was ...
Am I Operating on Your Pain or Anxiety?
My surgical decision-making dramatically changed over the last five years of my practice. In spite of watching so many successes ...
Stage 6 Posts - Procedures
Select a step from the dropdown menu below to view the posts in that step. The steps are:
Step 1 - General Considerations: Magnitude vs. Benefit
Step 2 - Decompressions
Step 3 - Lumbar Fusions
Step 4 - Deformity Surgery
Step 5 - Other Spine Surgeries
Step 6 - Stories of Surgical Despair
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Important Posts
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Positive Thinking vs. Real-time Reprogramming
You can heal by connecting to your own body’s capacity to heal. But that means connecting with every aspect of ...
Charley’s Story: Pain Free After 17 Doctors
This is a story of a middle-aged gentleman who became pain free using DOC Process principles. Although, he saw me ...
No More Being a Victim – Pay it Forward and Heal
Being a victim is universal because we are victims. Life is challenging for all living creatures, including humans. We are ...
“My Way Out” (of “The Abyss”) – One Patient’s Story
This is one of many stories of hope that I hear frequently. Her story is a classic illustration of how ...
“Ritalins”
I want to introduce you to Rita who holds the record in my practice for the longest time being in ...
“Physician, Heal Thyself” – and She Did
The solutions to breaking free from the grip of chronic pain have become increasingly clear. The answers are coming from ...
28 Surgeries–”I elected to not be in pain”
For many years, I thought that for many patients there was a point of no return because the sheer magnitude ...
Never Too Late for Hope
This letter was sent to me by a woman that I have corresponded with a few times but I have ...
What Makes Your Book Different?
This is a followup letter from a woman who emailed me about four years ago. I had never met her ...
Moving Forward by Being with her Anxiety
Lisa is a 58 year old high-level professional who developed chronic neck pain about 5 years ago. It began around ...
Meditation versus Medicating for Life
This is a letter from someone who I have never met. I would encourage you to read it carefully for ...
“Un-screwed”–Yoga Healing Back Pain
This is a piece submitted by a reader, who has done well. It illustrates several aspects of the healing journey ...
A Couple Re-united
During the last few years of practice, our team became extremely aware of the effect of chronic pain on the ...
Avoided a 12-hour Spine Fusion and is Free from Chronic Pain
Mark Owens’ Story This is a video that we shot of Mark Owens, who wrote the Forward of my book ...
How I Cured my Migraine Headaches
Migraine headaches are brutal and often incapacitating. They are also one of the symptoms of a chronically stressed nervous system ...
Chronic Neck Pain Gone – DOC Prevents Relapse
This story is from a woman, who I met at our first Omega workshop in 2013. I was holding the ...
The Lone Ranger
My Mask project is part of my fie art practice that began around 1970 and continues today. The series includes ...
Six Feet Apart
“Six Feet Apart” Oil 9×12″ Currently in literal terms, this is the kind of mask that has center stage right ...
Wear A Mask!
We have protected all our outside art as a reminder … This is serious! No related posts ...
The Cellist
When I saw this man playing on the street so he could make some money, I saw the expression on ...
Lost and Found
I keep coming back to this idea that there are two sides to every coin. In this time of global ...
Caught in a Swirl of Change
This mask represents the feeling of being separated from normal life. The Coronavirus has caused the government to close my ...
Florentine Mosaic
Mosaico Fiorentino Fragments like colored glass Segmented memories Names of streets Distant ricordi In a flash my thoughts translate into ...
Other Posts
- Falling in Love
- Create a Safe Haven – Family
- “I Want to Believe”
- Understand RUTs (Repetitive Unwanted Thoughts) and Solve Them
- RUTs – Can’t Take Your Hand Off the Stove? Turn Down the Heat
- Stories of Hope
- We have no protection from mental pain
- Accept the Gift of Consciousness – Choice
- Threat Physiology Can’t be Controlled with Behavioral Approaches
- Mental Rigidity – A Core Trait of Many Mental Health Diagnoses
- The Popcorn Machine – Healing RUTS
- Make the Right Decision About Spine Surgery – The Grid
- Everyone Needs Support
- The “Five E’s” of Chronic Pain
- Video 14/19: Chronic Pain: Pain Free is Not Only Possible, it’s Probable.
- Compassion and an Italian Dinner
- Video 8/19: Fusions For LBP Don’t Work
- Problems are Opportunities
- Video 7/19: The Catastrophe Index
- Examiners from the Worker’s Perspective
- Video 4/19: Listen When Your Surgeon Says “No”
- Arm the Worker
- Video 8 of 19: Finding the Source of The Pain
- Video 5 of 19: An Alternative Approach to Chronic Pain & Spine Surgery
- It Really is Upside Down
- The Catastrophe Index
- Your Doctor Might Not be Listening
- Worsening Prognosis with Time Off of Work
- Two Kinds of Anger
- Anger Affecting Nerve Pain
- Stress Management Overview
- How am I Going to Get There?
- Where am I Going?
- Where am I?
- Setting Goals with Three Questions
- Anti-Spasm
- Anti-depressants
- Anti-seizure
- Anti-anxiety
- Non-Narcotics
- Narcotics
- Medication Management
Click a Show Section button below to view the posts in that section.
Section 1 - Overview of RUTs
Section 2 - Solving RUTs
Section 3 - The Evolution of RUTs
Section 4 - Consequences of RUTs
Let's Wake Up
Falling in Love
Remember the first time you fell in love? Maybe you had a crush on a classmate in sixth grade. What about your first true love and being head over heels to the point you felt you couldn’t live without them? ... Read More
Honoring Loss by Living
Objectives: Life is full of loss and unfulfilled wishes. Sehnsucht is intense regret. Stress of a deep loss can trigger chronic pain, and there is nothing you can do. Remaining attached to your trauma prolongs the pain. Live your life ... Read More
Let’s Wake Up
Overview Our conscious brain interprets our internal bodily sensations. Since we are geared to survive, most of our time is spent in survival physiology. In this state, blood flow shifts away from our highest thinking brain, and we react more ... Read More