Recent Posts
Walking Head-on into Pain – and Healing
Overview Healing happens as you learn skills to feel safe – regardless of circumstances. Navigating challenges is basic to staying ...
Thoughts are like viruses
Overview Thoughts and viruses are inert and only active when they connect to live entities. Unwanted thoughts link up physiologically ...
Awareness – The Starting Point for Deep Healing
Objectives All of our actions this minute are determined by all of your past experiences up to this very second ...
Surgeon’s Guide to Professional Living
Overview Professionals in any arena focus on learning and repetition to attain the highest skill level. Why not focus this ...
Ride It Out: An Equestrian Approach to Transcending Pain
Rachel contacted me a couple of years ago through social media . She had been experiencing severe pain after a ...
Apply Performance Skills to Living Life
Overview Under stress, your thinking brain doesn’t function well, and performance suffers. In the operating room, it is critical to ...
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 ...
We have no protection from mental pain
Objectives: Pain from any body part is a protective danger signal that guides our behavior and physical responses to avoid ...
Let’s Wake Up – From reaCtive to Creative
Overview Anxiety and anger are powerful physiological reactions to stress that compromise rational thinking. RUTs are driven by threat physiology, ...
Introducing “Calm Your Body Heal Your Mind”
Overview Repetitive Unwanted Thoughts (RUTs) are a source of much misery. The harder you fight them, the stronger they become ...
Maslow’s Miss
Abraham Maslow Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) was a brilliant professor of psychology. He founded a branch of psychology known as “Humanistic ...
Work Is Medicine — We Keep Prescribing the Wrong Dose
Overview There is a clear link between being out of work and poor mental health. Modern medicine routinely fails to ...
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
Solving Tinnitus – The Ringing in My Ears
Ringing in your ears, regardless of its intensity, is annoying. Actually, it is more than annoying; it is relentless and ...
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 ...
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
Our Need to Feel Safe
The deep need to feel and be safe is the driving force of all life, including humans. In this physiological ...
Bullying is Good for Your Health
Bullying is maybe one of the most irrational and unacceptable aspects of the human experience. Everyone at every age, including ...
Social Anxiety – Vulnerability Doesn’t Feel Safe
Humans want to feel safe. Feeling or being safe reflects profound shifts in your body’s chemistry to “rest and digest.” ...
“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 ...
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 ...
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
“The Pit of Despair”
Modern medicine is evolving in a dangerous direction with regards to your care. The major factor in deciding to offer ...
Stress Kills – Don’t Allow it
Each of us has been given a profound gift – life. The meaning of life has been the focus of ...
Happy Holidays – Not
My first year in training I will never forget my first holiday season as an internal medicine resident in Spokane, ...
How healing happens
It really appears insurmountable, & the process stops and starts, but when you begin to take this course, to move ...
Why are New Year’s Resolutions So Hard to Keep?
Each new year, many of us spend time figuring out how we’ll make it better and also to really complete ...
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 that 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 ...
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
AI and the Cumulative Effects of Trauma
Objectives AI and the human brain both are blank slates whose functionality depends on what is loaded into them. Your ...
Four Aspects of Solving RUTs
Objectives Mental and physical pain are processed in similar regions of the brain. Our inability to escape from RUTs relentlessly ...
“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 ...
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
My Early Surgical Philosophy
I started my practice in Seattle in 1986. I was feeling pretty beat up from my spine training. I felt ...
Anger Altering a Surgical Decision
Objectives Spine surgery is not an option if there is not a structural problem with matching symptoms. Back pain does ...
My Call to Action
Jean was a 48 year-old woman who came to me from a neighboring state for a second opinion. She filled ...
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 ...
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 ...
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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Spastic Bladder Resolved – Being with Anger
This is a letter I recently received from a young woman with interstitial cystitis or spastic bladder. It is a ...
How to Heal – A Patient’s Story
Essentially every person that has experienced deep healing has learned to process anger and nurture joy. It is much more ...
No More Back Pain – A Story of Healing
When I discuss the idea that you can reprogram or shift your brain circuits around away from pain, there is ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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
- Walking Head-on into Pain – and Healing
- We have no protection from mental pain
- Stop Fighting Unwanted Thoughts: Healing Happens with Calm
- Love Lost, Grief and Despair Found
- Trauma, Stress, and a Failed Back Surgery
- 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
- 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
Walking Head-on into Pain – and Healing
Overview Healing happens as you learn skills to feel safe – regardless of circumstances. Navigating challenges is basic to staying alive. Why get upset when they arise? The bigger the stress, the greater the opportunity to practice your skills. Deal ... Read More
Thoughts are like viruses
Overview Thoughts and viruses are inert and only active when they connect to live entities. Unwanted thoughts link up physiologically because we fight them. They become our identity (cognitive fusion), and we can’t differentiate unwanted thoughts from physical threats. Skills ... Read More
Surgeon’s Guide to Professional Living
Overview Professionals in any arena focus on learning and repetition to attain the highest skill level. Why not focus this level of energy for developing life skills – processing stress and nurturing joy? Efficienting overcoming challenges is critical to for ... Read More
Apply Performance Skills to Living Life
Overview Under stress, your thinking brain doesn’t function well, and performance suffers. In the operating room, it is critical to be connected to every aspect of the case. In surgery, safely making one move at a time, allows a consistent ... Read More
Let’s Wake Up – From reaCtive to Creative
Overview Anxiety and anger are powerful physiological reactions to stress that compromise rational thinking. RUTs are driven by threat physiology, and it must be calmed down to meaningfully lower unwanted thoughts. As you calm your nervous system and feel safe, ... Read More
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