In this issue of my email newsletter, I bring you more news on my new book, Reversing Chronic Pain, including reviews from well-known experts in the trauma field. It is my hope that this valuable book will reach as many people as possible, and I am offering several incentives to encourage you to order a copy for yourself and to help spread the word to others who may benefit. I also report on fascinating studies highlighting the important role that hope plays in reversing chronic pain.

I hope that you will enjoy this fall season and find many wonderful antidotes to reverse any kind of pain in your life.

Warmest Wishes,

There are only a few more weeks to pre-order my new book, Reversing Chronic Pain, prior to its release date: September 26.

Here are reviews by two well-known trauma experts:

"There are two grand killers of life, the twin sisters of pain and fear. Indeed fear and pain feed on each other keeping us immobilized and unable to engage in life. Based on her decades of work in clinical hypnosis, imagery, energy psychology and in Somatic Experiencing, Dr. Phillips has masterfully distilled what is essential in helping people overcome and heal from chronic pain... The vision of this book goes well beyond managing pain. In addition, Maggie Phillips helps resource readers in many practical ways, including nutrition, gentle exercise and stretching, and various types of 'bodywork' methods found in their own communities. If you are a sufferer of pain or have loved ones who are in pain, this is a book for all seasons."
--Peter A Levine, Ph.D., Founder, Somatic Experiencing
Author: Healing Trauma, Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body (Sounds True, Book/CD) and Waking the Tiger, Healing Trauma (North Atlantic Books)

"Reversing Chronic Pain fills a niche that has been sorely lacking in the pain management field. An important book for physicians, psychotherapists, and anyone who suffers from this ubiquitous and poorly-understood condition."
-- Robert Scaer, MD, author of The Body Bears the Burden and The Trauma Spectrum

I am gratified that so many of you have offered to write reviews for this book. I think I have enough volunteers at the moment. Once you read the book, however, if you want to write a review for Amazon or for my website, I would really appreciate your contribution.

One of the most difficult aspects of treating emotional or physical pain, or any other posttraumatic symptom, is the challenge of staying out of the quagmire of despair, the twin sister of helplessness, which accompanies all traumatic experience. Dr. Jerome Groopman, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a staff writer in medicine and biology for New Yorker magazine, has written The Anatomy of Hope, published in 2004.

In a recent speech, Groopman cites a study by Fabrizio Benedetti in Italy. Researchers inflate blood pressure cuffs around the arm of volunteers and bring it up enough to reach a measurable pain experience. The volunteer is then medicated with a low dose of morphine, which helps to reduce the pain. As the procedure is continued, volunteers are told that they are receiving more morphine; instead, however, they receive saline. Most volunteers report a dramatic drop in pain levels. This occurs because of placebo effect, created by the belief that the morphine will help, releases endorphins and enkephalins that diminish the pain response in the brain.

A neuropsychologist named Richard Davidson views hope as possessing two components, cognitive and emotional. When one has true hope, he/she is able to look comprehensively at their circumstances, the obstacles as well as the strengths, and then find a path that can lead into a positive future. That is the cognitive aspect. When we talk about being uplifted by hope, there is an energizing feeling that we experience emotionally and in our bodies.

There are many pathways to creating hope. One is to shift from shame-based awareness of the recovery process to a pride-based awareness. Reversing Chronic Pain has many tools to facilitate this type of self-empowerment.

"In the end, hope, like true faith, is based on an intuited connection with the spirit. In this sense hope is far more profound than optimism, which is exclusively tied to a judgment of the probabilities in the field of concern. Hope has its source in the very sunlight that shines upon that field, and thus takes into account grace and the divine intent that unfolds in the world."
--Brother David Steindl-Rast, www.gratefulness.org.

In addition to my new book, I want to make you aware of a great book on resolving trauma by Fred Gallo called Energy Tapping for Trauma. To learn more about the wonderful method outlined in this book, visit amazon.com.

Another of the most powerful methods to shift trauma is Somatic Experiencing. I want to make all of you in Australia aware that Diane Poole Heller will be teaching a two-day workshop on SE along with related workshop days on victimotology, attachment, and spirituality. The workshop will be held in Byron Bay, Australia beginning on December 3. If any of you have taken my recent workshop in Australia and would like to attend any part of this series, you will receive a 10% discount just by sharing that information when you enroll. For more information, contact: Diane Poole Heller at dpooleheller@aol.com or Global Spirit Events at kalakeli@linknet.com .au to register.

For those of you in Germany, a reminder that I will be in Rottweil, Germany on the 25 and 26 September at the Milton H. Erickson Institute. I will conduct an advanced supervision workshop, designed for consultation on difficult cases as well as an opportunity for skill development. The hours are 14:00 pm until 20:00 pm on Tuesday 25/9 and 9:00 am - 16:00 pm on Wednesday, 26/9. For information, contact either me at assistant@ maggiephillipsphd.com or kontakt@meg- rottweil.de. There are only a few slots available. All are welcome. The focus will be on ego-state therapy, hypnoanalysis, Ericksonian approaches with trauma, and multi-modal techniques.

Another book on trauma I want to recommend is Healing the Heart of Trauma and Dissociation with EMDR and Ego State Therapy. This volume is edited by Carol Forgash and Margarete Copeley and will be soon released by Springer Publishing. The book combines EMDR with ego-state work and provides some creative cases. I have a chapter in the book as do others of note in the EMDR community. For more information visit www.springerpub.com.

As the interest in my new book continues to build, I would like your help in spreading the word. That's why I am offering an incentive if you or anyone you know orders Reversing Chronic Pain at full price once it becomes available on September 26 either through Amazon or a local bookstore. If you email a copy of the receipt to my assistant, Kohlim Jaeger at assistant@maggiephillipsphd.com, you will receive free access to the first module of the new Reversing Chronic Pain online tutorial. This program features multimedia information, tools, audio and video clips, and web links that cannot be found anywhere else and are designed to maximize success with Reversing Chronic Pain.

So there are two ways to benefit from ordering the book early: pre-order at Amazon for the low price of $12.21 before September 26 OR show us proof of purchase after that date to receive access to the first web interactive module to get off to a powerful start in Reversing Chronic Pain.

Additionally, if any of you have mailing lists that are larger than 500 names, contact me directly at mphillips@lmi.net for additional incentives to send a press release to your confidential email list.

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