Conversation with Gary Sharpe

I had an excellent and illuminating conversation with therapist Gary Sharpe last week, reproduced unedited below. Find Gary’s Substack here.

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Devaraj  How did you get involved in therapy?

Gary  In 2009, after quite a rapid and significant symptom onset, I was diagnosed with Early Onset Parkinson's Disease (although looking back now I see the signs and symptoms were there long before the diagnosis). At the time, I had a very stressful career as a University academic in science and engineering. The toxic combination of the chronic stress and PD nearly destroyed me. All I could do to try to keep my head above water was to take more and more of the dopamine replacing drugs. Even then, I had to give up my career in 2013 due to the stress. I tried to carry on for a couple more years as a consultant, but by 2016 I was at rock bottom. I was on high levels of the drugs, which had stopped working well [there is a honeymoon period of 5-10 years with these drugs, before the side effects start becoming significant], I was broke, and my marriage was at an end. I didn't want to live anymore, at least not like this.

What changed for me was when I had some free counselling funded by Parkinson's UK, and I encountered people on LinkedIn who were into "alternative" approaches to health. This set me on a path of taking responsibility for my own health. I began with movement therapies and diet changes. Then I started putting the research skills I had gained as a University scientist to work and doing my own research. This led me to finding out about the vagus nerve, mind-body connections, trauma, adverse childhood experiences, and to trying various trauma healing modalities and therapies.

Devaraj   Thanks. So it was a medical emergency that brought you towards therapy? It was a matter of need, rather than of interest? In my time, I’ve often had the sense that the therapists who got into the scene through need, rather than interest, become the most effective in their trade. When I was doing therapist training myself, I was told that the “stuff” that I work through in my own therapeutic journey will be the “stuff” that I can support others with. Would you agree with this? What are your thoughts?

Gary  Yes, it was a need, as before reaching rock bottom I had no interest in health matters at all. I am often asked what advice I would give my earlier pre-diagnosis self, based on what I know now. I always say none, because that earlier self would never have been able to listen to me or taken my advice. While I am not a formally trained or practicing therapist myself (as I feel the best way I can help other folks with chronic conditions, caregivers and therapists is through my writing, sharing my story and research), all the therapists I work with and talk to have also come to be there through their own crises or health problems in their own family, and all are still actively working on themselves too. I agree that this makes them most effective, not least because of the deep understanding of what their clients are going through.

Devaraj  Thank you. In your writings, what would you say are the themes that you feel most drawn to at this time?

Gary  At the moment, I am drawn to themes of how chronic illness, trauma and nervous system dysregulation interact, and feedback, with societal level and cultural issues we are facing. I found that the process of years of self-reflection and learning about the mind-body connection, the nervous system, developmental trauma, etc., and studying the works of Dr Stephen Porges, Dr Iain McGilchrist, Dr Laurence Heller, and many others, had given me some insights into the wider human condition. I felt I had something valuable to share about what I see happening in western society and culture. Indeed, I started my substack because I wanted to share these insights into wider themes, which were too off-topic for my Out-Thinking Parkinson's blog.

Devaraj  Got you, thanks. Yes, I have a similar position with my own Substack - allowing things to branch out into social, cultural or geopolitical areas. My own perception is that the West has pursued a general pathway of “detraumatization” since the “flower power” era - making childhoods less traumatic for infants and kids. But that this has actually not much reaped the rewards that were anticipated - happy, healthy individuals. Rather, because our culture is now so comfort-focused, people have become superficially more open but also more dissociated from the body and lacking resilience. Do you see anything like this yourself? Or do you have different insights in this area?

Gary  Interesting, I had not thought of it as deliberate effort to try "detraumatize" children, just misguided coddling. However, yes, I am seeing the same impacts as you describe. My friend, and child psychotherapist, Louis Weinstock has recently written a book all about this, called "How the World is Making Our Children Mad and What to Do About It: A field guide to raising empowered children and growing a more beautiful world" (highly recommended). He suggests that parents need to attend to themselves and their own nervous system regulation if they want to help their children the most. I also make the case that we need to radically overhaul schooling and education. I often say that telling kids they need to sit still and be silent for long periods is training their nervous systems how to inhabit Parkinson's like freeze states. This is not good. If only we started teaching kids how to self-regulate themselves, and co-regulate others, through training them in breathwork, meditation, etc, and arming them with empowering knowledge of physiology and stress responses, early, we would see a different world. Indeed, the kids could then hold the grown-ups to account for their behaviours and antics.

Devaraj  Ah, interesting and great that you pick that initial point up. Introspecting a little, I guess I see the movement towards a society that offers less traumatised childhoods as not so much a deliberate act. Rather I see it as an underlying trend that has naturally taken place as knowledge of psychology has filtered into Western minds. I mean, I want to be clear here. I’m not saying having a less traumatic childhood is in any way “bad.” Rather I think what we’re now seeing in Western culture is that the mix of “less trauma” and a “comfort-orientated” world does not work to create deeper and better humans.

I will check out the book you recommend, thank you. Though my own view is that whilst meditation and related self-regulation practices are excellent, it is rather the lack of developmental challenge that is most missing for today’s young. 

Gary  Yes, I see, and would have to agree with this. So by over-protecting kids, they don't get to learn by making their own mistakes, acquire resilence, build "anti-fragility", nor gain "hands-on" experience of how the real world works, or the ability to think themselves out of problems? Would this, ironically, mean they are actually more prone to stressful events later in life being traumatic, so this, ironically, ends up the opposite of protection from trauma and discomfort? In terms of being a better and deeper human, would you agree that it often takes a catalyst of severe adversity to grow - it took at chronic illness for me to start going down that path, for example?

Devaraj  I would say that Western society is currently in this phase of trying to make the world around us safer and more predictable. (And once it has made some progress with this, it tries to extend it out to the rest of the world). So it is protecting both the body and the ego from disturbing experiences. Protecting the body, I consider largely fair enough. But making our personal experience of life too safe and formulaic does just what you suggest - it reduces our potential to be resilient in the face of the unexpected. We are creating a hyper-nanny state!

I think that, yes, catastrophic personal experience does push a few people to go on a deep, inner journey, as you suggest. But that the majority of people just collapse in the face of such adversity. And this pushing only acts as a trigger for inner work because development is just not prioritised in our culture. The need for individuation is merely a side-effect of certain phases of Western cultural development, not a driver. 

Gary  that is a very interesting perspective, which makes a lot of sense to me, and feels right. So, say, if you were granted benevolent dictator status, how would you go about remedying this? What changes would you like to see? Is it about shifting our values? Or is it too soon to be talking about solutions, and we first need cultural or national conversations to start?

Devaraj  Ha ha! If I were granted dictator status (benevolent or not), I would simply require all global citizens to do 30 minutes of Bioenergetics every morning, unless medically exempt. No other changes!

You?

Gary  I would simply resign on the spot (well, after banning twitter first, maybe) to avoid becoming corrupted and stressed out! Although, as I alluded to earlier, I would hope a benevolent dictator would start at the ground level, with the kids, and overhaul the schooling system to teach children the actual tools, and provide them with the challenges, they need to live healthier, more fulfilled and purposeful lives. Then to also provide plenty of information about, and the encouragement to actually do, daily practices for mind and body, for the adults.