Bad Experience with Julian Cowan Hill

[DaveFromChicago]

To Julian Cowan Hill:

One of the most troubling ironies about you is that you claim to be so emotional-wellness oriented but are thrown into a state of snarling vituperation when even the slightest aspect of your commentary is questioned.

It should by now be apparent to you that you are comprehensively regarded as Persona Non Grata on this Forum.

 

[J Cowan Hill]

Hi everyone,

I had a really bad counselling experience with Julian Cowan Hill and thought I am going to share it here.

Hill has a big presence on YouTube where he has posted hundreds of videos about tinnitus and treats people with craniol sacral body work, tinnitus counselling and psychotherapy. He emphasises bodywork and relaxation and as I am a yoga teacher I thought I was on a wave length with him. But I have come away from 2 sessions of counselling with a very bad feeling. Talk about adding insult to injury!

Here is what happened:

- Hill asked virtually no questions as to the onset, development and coping strategies of my tinnitus, so I told him how I had used the relaxation exercises that I know from yoga. Not even 5 minutes into the session he declared that what I considered states of relaxation were actually states of stress. He repeated that throughout the two sessions that I had on several occasions.
- He insisted repeatedly that I had to be "settled" by a professional body worker and that I could not do this alone (despite the fact that I am yoga teacher for 30 years and have helped countless people into deep states of relaxation, myself included)
- When I said that I was cautious about hands-on healing and that I had bad experiences with that he declared that I "had issues with trusting people and needed to learn to trust more". Remember, he did not know me at all, he just blurted these things out without looking for any evidence in my behaviour or what I had told him about my general psychological make up (almost nothing).
- In no way did he try to look for my strengths in order to advise me how to use them to cope with my tinnitus but, to the contrary, he demolished what I thought were my strengths by pathologising them, which left me weakened in confidence and hurt.
- He did not give me one piece of tailor-made advice that I could not have found in his videos. Instead, he simply droned on just repeating the same stuff that he says in his videos. I had to really interrupt him a number of times to try to get the conversation back to my individual situation but that often resulted in him criticising and pathologising me without any real evidence because he was not interested in my personal story at all.
- He made dodgy comments like: tinnitus produces a "buzzy charge" in the head and that he had the capacity to remove this charge through his hands on healing.
- When I asked him how I should mask (a very important aspect for coping with tinnitus which I struggled with) he simply said, listen to music when you feel like it but not when you want to mask the tinnitus. As if this was possible when you feel tormented by a screeching sound in your head. His lack of empathy was staggering.
- When I asked him what kind of recovery time I could expect he boastfully declared that you could be cured of tinnitus in 10 minutes if you knew what you were doing.

All in all, I came away from the two sessions bruised and being exploited by a real snake oil seller. I have never experienced anything like that in my life and I have seen a number of healing practitioners over the years.

Please let me know if anybody had similar experiences with Hill, so that other people are hopefully warned.

Regarding my tinnitus, I found much improvement with searching for triggers and eliminating them, acupuncture and in recent times with the principles TRT.

Wow, I feel physically sick and am shaking having read this thread. It has really shocked me to the core. I never dreamt that trying to help people would end up bringing up so much hatred and negativity. It is extraordinary to think that I have dedicated myself to helping suicidal people find their way back to well-being for the last 20 years. Every day I receive emails saying that I have helped people make a good recovery. In my book "The Long Tide to Silence" I describe my struggle in great detail. I do my best but I cannot help everybody. I'm sorry if I have not listened compassionately enough. Clearly one person cannot help everyone. Some people will be drawn more to others. I'm just a therapist helping others to the best of my ability. Wow.

I'm so sorry to have caused any suffering or ill feeling. I never intended to cause any harm.
Could we talk about this please? I am mortified that you had such a negative experience. Please accept my apologies. I can't believe I said tinnitus would go in 10 minutes. Perhaps I was referring to some clients whose tinnitus turned off after 10 minutes of working on them. In 20 years of practice that has probably happened a dozen times only. I think there must have been a misunderstanding. Perhaps I could make it up to you when I am back in practice and offer you a cranial session. So sorry to have caused any distress.

 

[J Cowan Hill]

To Julian Cowan Hill:

One of the most troubling ironies about you is that you claim to be so emotional-wellness oriented but are thrown into a state of snarling vituperation when even the slightest aspect of your commentary is questioned.

It should by now be apparent to you that you are comprehensively regarded as Persona Non Grata on this Forum.

This is an important wake-up call for me. I had no idea. Thanks for letting me know. I hope you get back to silence one day too.

Cheers,
Julian

 

[J Cowan Hill]

@linearb is SO RIGHT. No way around it, Michael Leigh is a waste of space on the internet. Repeating the same misconceptions over and over and over and over and over again. But if Julian Cowan Hill has his audience, maybe Michael Leigh has some fans too... but so did Jim Jones.

It's scary some people are unable to grow and absorb feedback. Is it arrogance, narcissism or what is it? I don't know...

Barb runs away now from this thread.

It is best to give feedback to the person themselves. I have read this thread and now have received this feedback. It's food for thought and a wake up call. Thanks.

 

[J Cowan Hill]

Likewise...

Just so interesting to read. How are you with Joey and I helping others even if we have not helped you?

 

[Michael Leigh]

Just so interesting to read. How are you with Joey and I helping others even if we have not helped you?

Dear Mr Julian Cowan Hill,

I do not know who Joey is, and I have never approached you for help. I have had noise induced tinnitus for many years. It is variable in intensity from silent, mild, moderate and severe. I have habituated to this and been under the care of NHS for over 20 years with it. My experience in noise induced tinnitus, has enabled me to help people in this forum asking for help with it as other members do.

Kind regards.
Michael

 

[J Cowan Hill]

Last response I promise! I think I will leave a feedback box in my clinic so that people can always let me know how things are going anonymously. I mustn't assume that people will let me know how they are feeling even if I am asking them constantly how are you, how can I help?

 

[AliasM]

I have also encountered this Joey Remenyi:

Who also "heals" tinnitus by private counselling:

Check out her videos. She has turned-off YouTube video commenting (we can all guess why).

To hell with them!

Just reading through old threads. I had so much hope when I saw this YouTube clip that I contacted her. Luckily her fees were around $3K because if they were less, even by half, I might have parted with my money.

 

[vermillion]

Just reading through old threads. I had so much hope when I saw this YouTube clip that I contacted her. Luckily her fees were around $3K because if they were less, even by half, I might have parted with my money.

$3K down the drain!

Thankfully you didn't go down that road...

 

[Ben Johnson]

I've had tinnitus for one month and I'm searching for help/answers/relief. I've been watching some Julian Cowan Hill videos on YouTube and his approach makes sense to me.

I've picked up a general vibe on this website that he's not very well liked by the tinnitus community here. Could someone please explain the negatives regarding Hill? He seems to genuinely care and want to help people recover. And, I have no problem with him benefitting financially from his services. His basic approach is calming the central nervous system and I can't see how that is not a really good thing for tinnitus sufferers.

Please help me to understand. Thanks.

 

[AfroSnowman]

I've had tinnitus for one month and I'm searching for help/answers/relief. I've been watching some Julian Cowan Hill videos on YouTube and his approach makes sense to me.

I've picked up a general vibe on this website that he's not very well liked by the tinnitus community here. Could someone please explain the negatives regarding Hill? He seems to genuinely care and want to help people recover. And, I have no problem with him benefitting financially from his services. His basic approach is calming the central nervous system and I can't see how that is not a really good thing for tinnitus sufferers.

Please help me to understand. Thanks.

Mostly folks that are here long term are on the more extreme end of the tinnitus spectrum and due to that really won't find much help from JCH. I think the anger, which I personally find misplaced, comes from him promising a cure that he can't deliver to us and there being an implicit message that our lack of recovery comes from a lack of trying.

I think his methods help some people and if it helps you, you should run with it.

 

[Ben Johnson]

Mostly folks that are here long term are on the more extreme end of the tinnitus spectrum and due to that really won't find much help from JCH. I think the anger, which I personally find misplaced, comes from him promising a cure that he can't deliver to us and there being an implicit message that our lack of recovery comes from a lack of trying.

I think his methods help some people and if it helps you, you should run with it.

Thank you for the well measured response. I've noticed that a handful of people here get up in arms over folks who are genuinely trying to help others. It's like they are looking to be offended. And I actually understand their misplaced anger but wish they would refrain.

It's a terrible affliction but hope and positivity are not bad things.

 

[Damocles]

Anyone with a medical background of any kind is more qualified to speak on these issues than a condescending person who constantly copy/pastes the same tired, unscientific ideas and thinks that headphones have magic beans in them that alter the properties of sound. I honestly think that the average heavy metal singer probably has more realistic ideas about noise induced hearing loss than you do.

It's too bad Australia is already occupied, else we could just send you and Julian and Joey and all these other people there to explore your unconventional ideas in the outback. The British had the right idea with that.

Have a good day, sir

Likewise...

Just so interesting to read. How are you with Joey and I helping others even if we have not helped you?

Dear Mr Julian Cowan Hill,

I do not know who Joey is, and I have never approached you for help.

 

[Ben Johnson]

@Michael Leigh, could you define noise-induced tinnitus in a very basic way? I've had tinnitus for years but it has never bothered me. It only became intrusive when I had been in a poor mental state for 6 months. I had just started Zoloft and just recovered from COVID-19. So, I can't pinpoint the cause. My audiogram showed some mild hearing loss at 4000 Hz, around the 50 dB mark. Thank you for your continued guidance with these issues.

 

[J Cowan Hill]

Dear Tinnitus Talk,

Sorry for causing any anger, harm or upset. It was never my intention. I also want to try and clear up any misconceptions about me or my work.

It is truly terrifying and confusing to come across people wanting to bump me off or have me locked up or reported, when every day I get many emails telling me that I have saved people's lives and have helped them get back on track.

I remember all too clearly when I was crippled with tinnitus so badly that I couldn't sleep, work or function. I never planned to take my own life but I definitely didn't know how I was going to carry on.

Craniosacral therapy changed my life. At the age of 34 it was the first thing that helped me relax and switch off, and luckily for me it changed in the first session after 20 long years of struggling with it. So I kept going with cranial work.

I fell in love with the work and trained as a therapist. A year later I woke up in silence and had a week of quiet which was like a miracle. The ENT had told me there was nothing I could do, so when I got better I thought, if I can, then so can others.

So I set up a practice and started working on people with tinnitus with good results. Then as my practice grew, I started sharing things on YouTube that I had learned because I thought it would benefit others.

As a practitioner I get a lot of satisfaction helping others get better. I cannot help everyone but there is a natural selection that happens where those that benefit continue, and those that don't get much out of it move on.

I don't know why I am sensitive and can feel people's systems vibrating and pulsing and dropping into stillness, but I can. Cranial work opened up a whole new world to me and really challenged my ideas about mind, body and energy. When people come to me and say it feels like their whole head is buzzing or that their jaw is on fire or that their body feels full of electricity, I can put hands on and palpate this. When the buzz dissipates or the fire cools then people report feeling better.

The is no science to prove this other than people saying they feel better. For a therapist this is good enough. So I just carry on doing the work and enjoying helping people get better. I wish I could set up a research projects to prove the work does work, but as a therapist we are bound by confidentiality and are not allowed to use personal process for other ends. Therapy is therapy and science is science. They are both good.

I work a lot with suicidal people and often have to do go the extra mile responding in the night time or early morning and this can be stressful at times. But it is deeply rewarding work. I put out a lot of information for free and spend hours replying to emails offering support and advice every day.

When people are told there is nothing they can do I step in and share all the things I have learned. Sometimes I click with clients and the work goes like a dream, other times there is not so much of a connection and people move on. I cannot help everyone. I just do my best. Reading how I have made mistakes in this thread is sobering and a wake-up call and reminds me that I need to work to the best of my ability. I can make mistakes like anyone else.

When people write that I am a charlatan practicing a pseudoscience and that I am feeding off the suffering of tinnitus people this is a big shock. When I vowed to do my best to help I never expected to come across such negativity.

Surely it is fine to help the people I help. If it is not for you then you will find something else. But wanting to have me struck off or saying that I don't know what an X-ray machine is or that I believe in quackery is a misunderstanding. Ironically when physicist friends were showing me around the Atlas part of the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, they explained that it was in Cern where they developed a mesh that made X-ray machines much safer to use for the general public. There are strange rumours running around the naysayers that are completely made up.

I referred to Masaru Emoto's water experiment where he froze water exposed to different qualities, music, words etc and found that the ice crystals formed different patterns accordingly. This is an extraordinary finding, hard to get one's head round. This has been misconstrued and used to depict me as an imbecile. Cranial work reveals how we live in a participatory world and how things can resonate and interact with each other much more than we think. Quantum physics reveals this all the time. When you do 8000 hours of body work you learn to pick up more and more information.

I don't know why helping people get better has incurred the wrath and violent annihilatory responses from people in this group. I am not a charlatan, I am not ripping people off. I charge the normal amount for therapy work.

I have got better myself and help others get better. Some people don't resonate with my work and discontinue, but that is fair enough. Coming out of fight or flight is proven scientifically to be a big part of helping tinnitus and most forms of body-based therapy can help achieve this.

From medical research we know that the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, thalamus and reticular activating system are part of the tinnitus dynamic. If we look at what these parts of the central nervous system do we can form conclusions that feeling safe, connected and doing life-affirming activities, shifting the focus from hearing into other activities and having a positive mindset can all help tinnitus get better. Feeling safe is a big piece of the puzzle. So when cranial work drops someone into stillness and the alertness switches off, not surprisingly the ringing can calm down.

This is clinical work and not quackery.

So my question to Tinnitus Talk is, can we let this be? There are many paths to Rome. Some people will wear maskers, others will use a Lenire device, others will try craniosacral therapy and others will do CBT. There will be things that help some people and not others. That doesn't mean that they need to be struck off or put in prison or bumped off. A lot of the stuff on this thread is negative and destructive. I want to try and open up communication so better understanding is achieved and that we can let go of this toxicity.

Stewing in negativity and a "don't delude yourself – you will never get better" mindset is unlikely to help you get better. What you think about comes about. There is a brilliant TED Talk about this.

Someone who is actually helping others get better.

If you download my app which is free for the first month, you can go to the positive stories section and look at a document called "Positive Feedback" where there are at least 130 accounts of people getting better. These are just collected off the internet as I am not allowed to use client material. There are many more.

Wishing you all well,
Julian Cowan Hill

 

[Anomalous]

I referred to Masaru Emoto's water experiment where he froze water exposed to different qualities, music, words etc and found that the ice crystals formed different patterns accordingly. This is an extraordinary finding, hard to get one's head round. This has been misconstrued and used to depict me as an imbecile. Cranial work reveals how we live in a participatory world and how things can resonate and interact with each other much more than we think. Quantum physics reveals this all the time. When you do 8000 hours of body work you learn to pick up more and more information.

As someone who actually has a physics degree, I'd like to confirm that this guy is completely full of shit.

 

[MindOverMatter]

Stewing in negativity and a "don't delude yourself – you will never get better" mindset is unlikely to help you get better.

I couldn't agree more.

Tinnitus and hyperacusis are complex, with numerous causes, and we all experience it somewhat different.

A thing that works for me to some degree, might not have the same positive effect on others. No matter what science is behind it. Whether it be CBT, craniosacral therapy, yoga, sound therapy, a mix of things, and so forth...

 

[tpj]

It depends on what we mean by getting better. For me, that's an actual treatment or cure. It makes no difference to my tinnitus and hyperacusis whether I'm laughing or crying, bastards that they are.

 

[BrysonKingMe]

Dear Tinnitus Talk,

Sorry for causing any anger, harm or upset. It was never my intention. I also want to try and clear up any misconceptions about me or my work.

It is truly terrifying and confusing to come across people wanting to bump me off or have me locked up or reported, when every day I get many emails telling me that I have saved people's lives and have helped them get back on track.

I remember all too clearly when I was crippled with tinnitus so badly that I couldn't sleep, work or function. I never planned to take my own life but I definitely didn't know how I was going to carry on.

Craniosacral therapy changed my life. At the age of 34 it was the first thing that helped me relax and switch off, and luckily for me it changed in the first session after 20 long years of struggling with it. So I kept going with cranial work.

I fell in love with the work and trained as a therapist. A year later I woke up in silence and had a week of quiet which was like a miracle. The ENT had told me there was nothing I could do, so when I got better I thought, if I can, then so can others.

So I set up a practice and started working on people with tinnitus with good results. Then as my practice grew, I started sharing things on YouTube that I had learned because I thought it would benefit others.

As a practitioner I get a lot of satisfaction helping others get better. I cannot help everyone but there is a natural selection that happens where those that benefit continue, and those that don't get much out of it move on.

I don't know why I am sensitive and can feel people's systems vibrating and pulsing and dropping into stillness, but I can. Cranial work opened up a whole new world to me and really challenged my ideas about mind, body and energy. When people come to me and say it feels like their whole head is buzzing or that their jaw is on fire or that their body feels full of electricity, I can put hands on and palpate this. When the buzz dissipates or the fire cools then people report feeling better.

The is no science to prove this other than people saying they feel better. For a therapist this is good enough. So I just carry on doing the work and enjoying helping people get better. I wish I could set up a research projects to prove the work does work, but as a therapist we are bound by confidentiality and are not allowed to use personal process for other ends. Therapy is therapy and science is science. They are both good.

I work a lot with suicidal people and often have to do go the extra mile responding in the night time or early morning and this can be stressful at times. But it is deeply rewarding work. I put out a lot of information for free and spend hours replying to emails offering support and advice every day.

When people are told there is nothing they can do I step in and share all the things I have learned. Sometimes I click with clients and the work goes like a dream, other times there is not so much of a connection and people move on. I cannot help everyone. I just do my best. Reading how I have made mistakes in this thread is sobering and a wake-up call and reminds me that I need to work to the best of my ability. I can make mistakes like anyone else.

When people write that I am a charlatan practicing a pseudoscience and that I am feeding off the suffering of tinnitus people this is a big shock. When I vowed to do my best to help I never expected to come across such negativity.

Surely it is fine to help the people I help. If it is not for you then you will find something else. But wanting to have me struck off or saying that I don't know what an X-ray machine is or that I believe in quackery is a misunderstanding. Ironically when physicist friends were showing me around the Atlas part of the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, they explained that it was in Cern where they developed a mesh that made X-ray machines much safer to use for the general public. There are strange rumours running around the naysayers that are completely made up.

I referred to Masaru Emoto's water experiment where he froze water exposed to different qualities, music, words etc and found that the ice crystals formed different patterns accordingly. This is an extraordinary finding, hard to get one's head round. This has been misconstrued and used to depict me as an imbecile. Cranial work reveals how we live in a participatory world and how things can resonate and interact with each other much more than we think. Quantum physics reveals this all the time. When you do 8000 hours of body work you learn to pick up more and more information.

I don't know why helping people get better has incurred the wrath and violent annihilatory responses from people in this group. I am not a charlatan, I am not ripping people off. I charge the normal amount for therapy work.

I have got better myself and help others get better. Some people don't resonate with my work and discontinue, but that is fair enough. Coming out of fight or flight is proven scientifically to be a big part of helping tinnitus and most forms of body-based therapy can help achieve this.

From medical research we know that the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, thalamus and reticular activating system are part of the tinnitus dynamic. If we look at what these parts of the central nervous system do we can form conclusions that feeling safe, connected and doing life-affirming activities, shifting the focus from hearing into other activities and having a positive mindset can all help tinnitus get better. Feeling safe is a big piece of the puzzle. So when cranial work drops someone into stillness and the alertness switches off, not surprisingly the ringing can calm down.

This is clinical work and not quackery.

So my question to Tinnitus Talk is, can we let this be? There are many paths to Rome. Some people will wear maskers, others will use a Lenire device, others will try craniosacral therapy and others will do CBT. There will be things that help some people and not others. That doesn't mean that they need to be struck off or put in prison or bumped off. A lot of the stuff on this thread is negative and destructive. I want to try and open up communication so better understanding is achieved and that we can let go of this toxicity.

Stewing in negativity and a "don't delude yourself – you will never get better" mindset is unlikely to help you get better. What you think about comes about. There is a brilliant TED Talk about this.

Someone who is actually helping others get better.

If you download my app which is free for the first month, you can go to the positive stories section and look at a document called "Positive Feedback" where there are at least 130 accounts of people getting better. These are just collected off the internet as I am not allowed to use client material. There are many more.

Wishing you all well,
Julian Cowan Hill

Your own bio says tinnitus is a temporary feast that everyone can let go of.

You even had the audacity to tell @DaveFromChicago that you wish silence on him soon, something he will most likely never have without a real treatment.

The issue is the same over and over again on Tinnitus Talk. People throw blanket statements over everything. Just because your tinnitus is gone from your head massages, that will probably not work for 99.9% of the population.

Your naivety of true chronic, severe tinnitus outweighs whatever good intentions you have.

 

[David S]

The goal of treating severe tinnitus should always be that you can learn to live a good life despite your diagnosis. For the ones that suffer the most, that seems to be an illusion and all you can think of is to get your silence back. It takes many years to change that mindset.

Trying to sell the dream to the most severe cases that silence might be possible is not a good idea. Unmaskable, reactive tinnitus or sound sensitivity are all, to me, symptoms of real nerve damage. Unfortunately nerves do not heal.

 

[AfroSnowman]

Dear Tinnitus Talk,

Sorry for causing any anger, harm or upset. It was never my intention. I also want to try and clear up any misconceptions about me or my work.

It is truly terrifying and confusing to come across people wanting to bump me off or have me locked up or reported, when every day I get many emails telling me that I have saved people's lives and have helped them get back on track.

I remember all too clearly when I was crippled with tinnitus so badly that I couldn't sleep, work or function. I never planned to take my own life but I definitely didn't know how I was going to carry on.

Craniosacral therapy changed my life. At the age of 34 it was the first thing that helped me relax and switch off, and luckily for me it changed in the first session after 20 long years of struggling with it. So I kept going with cranial work.

I fell in love with the work and trained as a therapist. A year later I woke up in silence and had a week of quiet which was like a miracle. The ENT had told me there was nothing I could do, so when I got better I thought, if I can, then so can others.

So I set up a practice and started working on people with tinnitus with good results. Then as my practice grew, I started sharing things on YouTube that I had learned because I thought it would benefit others.

As a practitioner I get a lot of satisfaction helping others get better. I cannot help everyone but there is a natural selection that happens where those that benefit continue, and those that don't get much out of it move on.

I don't know why I am sensitive and can feel people's systems vibrating and pulsing and dropping into stillness, but I can. Cranial work opened up a whole new world to me and really challenged my ideas about mind, body and energy. When people come to me and say it feels like their whole head is buzzing or that their jaw is on fire or that their body feels full of electricity, I can put hands on and palpate this. When the buzz dissipates or the fire cools then people report feeling better.

The is no science to prove this other than people saying they feel better. For a therapist this is good enough. So I just carry on doing the work and enjoying helping people get better. I wish I could set up a research projects to prove the work does work, but as a therapist we are bound by confidentiality and are not allowed to use personal process for other ends. Therapy is therapy and science is science. They are both good.

I work a lot with suicidal people and often have to do go the extra mile responding in the night time or early morning and this can be stressful at times. But it is deeply rewarding work. I put out a lot of information for free and spend hours replying to emails offering support and advice every day.

When people are told there is nothing they can do I step in and share all the things I have learned. Sometimes I click with clients and the work goes like a dream, other times there is not so much of a connection and people move on. I cannot help everyone. I just do my best. Reading how I have made mistakes in this thread is sobering and a wake-up call and reminds me that I need to work to the best of my ability. I can make mistakes like anyone else.

When people write that I am a charlatan practicing a pseudoscience and that I am feeding off the suffering of tinnitus people this is a big shock. When I vowed to do my best to help I never expected to come across such negativity.

Surely it is fine to help the people I help. If it is not for you then you will find something else. But wanting to have me struck off or saying that I don't know what an X-ray machine is or that I believe in quackery is a misunderstanding. Ironically when physicist friends were showing me around the Atlas part of the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, they explained that it was in Cern where they developed a mesh that made X-ray machines much safer to use for the general public. There are strange rumours running around the naysayers that are completely made up.

I referred to Masaru Emoto's water experiment where he froze water exposed to different qualities, music, words etc and found that the ice crystals formed different patterns accordingly. This is an extraordinary finding, hard to get one's head round. This has been misconstrued and used to depict me as an imbecile. Cranial work reveals how we live in a participatory world and how things can resonate and interact with each other much more than we think. Quantum physics reveals this all the time. When you do 8000 hours of body work you learn to pick up more and more information.

I don't know why helping people get better has incurred the wrath and violent annihilatory responses from people in this group. I am not a charlatan, I am not ripping people off. I charge the normal amount for therapy work.

I have got better myself and help others get better. Some people don't resonate with my work and discontinue, but that is fair enough. Coming out of fight or flight is proven scientifically to be a big part of helping tinnitus and most forms of body-based therapy can help achieve this.

From medical research we know that the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, thalamus and reticular activating system are part of the tinnitus dynamic. If we look at what these parts of the central nervous system do we can form conclusions that feeling safe, connected and doing life-affirming activities, shifting the focus from hearing into other activities and having a positive mindset can all help tinnitus get better. Feeling safe is a big piece of the puzzle. So when cranial work drops someone into stillness and the alertness switches off, not surprisingly the ringing can calm down.

This is clinical work and not quackery.

So my question to Tinnitus Talk is, can we let this be? There are many paths to Rome. Some people will wear maskers, others will use a Lenire device, others will try craniosacral therapy and others will do CBT. There will be things that help some people and not others. That doesn't mean that they need to be struck off or put in prison or bumped off. A lot of the stuff on this thread is negative and destructive. I want to try and open up communication so better understanding is achieved and that we can let go of this toxicity.

Stewing in negativity and a "don't delude yourself – you will never get better" mindset is unlikely to help you get better. What you think about comes about. There is a brilliant TED Talk about this.

Someone who is actually helping others get better.

If you download my app which is free for the first month, you can go to the positive stories section and look at a document called "Positive Feedback" where there are at least 130 accounts of people getting better. These are just collected off the internet as I am not allowed to use client material. There are many more.

Wishing you all well,
Julian Cowan Hill

Julian,

So for me the answer to the negativity you find here is that, using myself as an example, I've probably spent close to $10,000 and who knows how much energy and time at this point on acupuncture, chiropractors, energy healers, traditional healers, Lenire, therapy, antidepressants, CBT, ENTs, audiologists, hearing aids, sound therapies, supplements and off-label drugs and at the end of the day they have all done nothing to move the dial on my severe tinnitus. All these folk have asked for my money and an open mind.

Though I am sure you mean well and if you were next door and gave me a discount rate I'd give it a flyer, I have come to the conclusion that while I can change my attitude, there is nothing in this world that can change my symptoms one whit, for better or for worse. Your service, which I'm sure helps some of your clients, feels incredibly likely to have the same non-miraculous outcome. To ask me to put my faith in one more unproven cure/treatment, well it is a big ask.

So from my perspective the instinctive negativity comes from you feeling like one of the hundred other treatments we've been promised that in the end leaves us a bit poorer and a bit older, but with the same sound in the head. Maybe it is less about you and more about all the people that come to us with services that this community in sharing experiences have found almost uniformly ineffective.

Of course there is no call for some of the outright vitriol thrown at you, but I think the above plus being in a state of incurable chronic pain mostly explains the reaction you are finding.

 

[Watasha]

As someone who actually has a physics degree, I'd like to confirm that this guy is completely full of shit.

Argument from authority. Will you please explain how?

 

[GregCA]

Argument from authority. Will you please explain how?

You may find useful info here: Wikipedia: Craniosacral therapy.

 

[DeanD]

Unmaskable, reactive tinnitus or sound sensitivity are all, to me, symptoms of real nerve damage. Unfortunately nerves do not heal.

Is that the case though?

I am not suggesting hearing regenerates but there are many stories, including on Tinnitus Talk, of reactivity and hyperacusis getting better.

I have had ENTs say nerves can heal but takes a long time, like one to two years. That timeframe seems to loosely fit the success stories on Tinnitus Talk on reduction or resolution in sound reactivity or hyperacusis in some.

I'm not suggesting there is a one-size-fits-all, but is this really a hard and fast rule?

As for craniosacral therapy, as we all know, it isn't going to fix tinnitus or even reduce it, just like every other treatment.

If a person believes in this, and other treatments, it can relieve stress and tension - and we know stress in some increases tinnitus - so perhaps this type of therapy helps some by way of reducing the bodies stress levels and calming someone down (not a bad thing).

But no, like everything else such as TRT, CBT etc., they are not created to cure tinnitus but aid habituation (damn I hate that word!).

 

[Watasha]

You may find useful info here: Wikipedia: Craniosacral therapy.

Thanks! The post in question was a little more specific to physics and was limited to a small piece of Julian's post. Whether or not someone has a physics degree would be irrelevant with regards to CST in general based on the available scientific evidence. Julian makes a solid point though about the interconnectedness of our environments and potential emotional states, to which Anomalous just responded was "bs" so was curious what about that was "bs."

 

[Anomalous]

Whether or not someone has a physics degree would be irrelevant with regards to CST in general based on the available scientific evidence.

Having a degree in anything is relevant because you can immediately tell when someone is misrepresenting themselves as knowledgeable in your field when in fact they are not. It is very common in alternative medicine for therapists to portray themselves as having a working knowledge about quantum physics and that their treatments are based on quantum physics. They will spout some gibberish about vibrating energy fields, superpositions and quantum this and that in order to convince you that their shitty crystals and magic hands can somehow cure diseases. There are several reasons why they do this:

1. Quantum physics sounds exciting. Everyone has heard stories about how cats can supposedly be dead and alive at the same time, that particles can be several places at once and that nature doesn't exist when you're not looking at it or whatever. They have heard about parallel universes and so on. It's all very sci-fi and engaging which just goes to show how easily people can be led to believe things about the world that aren't even fucking true. Which leads to my next point:

2. The general public's knowledge about quantum physics is piss poor. You can say all sorts of plausible gibberish by randomly stringing some science-y words together knowing that the likelihood that someone is going to arrest you for it is very low, and even lower for someone who is interested in alternative medicine in the first place. It's so easy in fact that you did it just now. Please, go on about "the interconnectedness of our environments and potential emotional states". That's so profound I might even puke. How's that for interconnectedness.

3. Lastly, the general public have a perception about quantum physicists as very intelligent and competent. Because it's supposedly so weird and full of complicated math it can only take a genius to understand it. Name-dropping quantum physics is literally the number 1 go-to when some dumbass with no grip on reality wants to act like they're smart. "I know quantum physics, therefore I am smart." "Quantum physics reveals how there is much more between Heaven and Earth than we think, therefore you should totally believe in my craniosacral horseshit."

"Quantum physics" does, as a matter of fact, NOT reveal "how things can resonate and interact with each other much more than we think". The term "quantum physics" refers to the set of phenomena that happens at atomic scales. In order to observe these phenomena you have to do experiments, something that Julian in his latest post is trying to bullshit himself out of. The only thing that is true in physics are outcomes of experiments. They are the be-all, end-all of physics. Outcomes of experiments are numbers. Like, how long did it take for the ball to hit the ground? Perhaps it took 6 seconds. If whatever bullshit idea you have about the world predicts anything else than 6 seconds outside of reasonable accuracy then it is wrong. If you are unable to demonstrate to others that your bullshit idea can predict the outcome of experiments, then it is wrong. If your bullshit idea somehow gets the outcome right, then it is the temporarily best description of that particular phenomenon. That is, until your bullshit idea fails to get the outcome right or another less bullshit idea comes about.

One such idea is quantum mechanics. It is quite literally a set of rules that you follow in which you input the information you have about a system and get predictive results as output. It doesn't say anything about what the system is; YOU define what the system is. It's on you to create a model which accurately represents the system you're trying to describe. The system may or may not have anything to do with the real world, but the reason anyone actually cares about quantum mechanics is that it has been successfully applied to systems of electrons orbiting atomic nuclei. It doesn't say anything about what electrons are or how they interact; again, that's on you. So the claim that quantum physics reveals how "things" interact is plain and simple bullshit. Instead it reveals how Julian likes to talk about things he knows nothing about. You'd think that this guy does it for a living or something.

A feature of quantum mechanics is that as the size of your system grows it gets crazy complicated really fast. At the molecular level you're already forced to abandon it in favor of effective descriptions like Newtonian mechanics; the same that you'd use to calculate the time it takes a ball to hit the ground. At larger scales quantum mechanics becomes utterly irrelevant. That's why the general public doesn't need to know quantum mechanics. Your doctor doesn't need to know quantum mechanics. Researchers in medicine don't need to know quantum mechanics. Susan Shore does not know quantum mechanics. When Julian pokes at your head with his magic hands or whatever it has nothing to do with quantum mechanics. Literally the only reason this dumbass has to mention quantum anything is to deceive you.

The scientific method applies to physics as well as to any kind of therapy. If you are unable to demonstrate that your snake oil, craniosacral money sucking straw out of sick and desperate people's pockets actually works, then you can take the straw and get bent. You can't go "therapy is therapy and science is science" and then have the audacity to sign with "Someone who is actually helping others get better". This guy is a pathological liar and gaslights people for a living. He portrays himself as this pure soul who just wants to help, who is the victim of the violent wrath of the naysayers, and also made sure to advertise his book and his shitty app. It is textbook charlatan behavior.

Actually, I dare you to give this prick your money. See what happens.

 

[ZFire]

Wake me up when theoretical physicists are able to reconcile quantum mechanics with Einstein's relativity. Thank you.

Anyways, looking forward to the day when objective measurements for tinnitus becomes a reality. Gonna change everything if it ever comes to fruition.

 

[GregCA]

Thanks! The post in question was a little more specific to physics and was limited to a small piece of Julian's post. Whether or not someone has a physics degree would be irrelevant with regards to CST in general based on the available scientific evidence. Julian makes a solid point though about the interconnectedness of our environments and potential emotional states, to which Anomalous just responded was "bs" so was curious what about that was "bs."

Fair enough.

That small piece was focused on Masaru Emoto's experiments on water, with claims that are very relevant to physics. After all, physics is "the branch of science concerned with the nature and properties of matter and energy", so it is not particularly surprising that a person with a physics degree would have the right context to weigh in on claims about the structure of water crystals (matter).

Here's another take, if you're interested in digging a bit: The Pseudoscience of Masaru Emoto

 

[Watasha]

Fair enough.

That small piece was focused on Masaru Emoto's experiments on water, with claims that are very relevant to physics. After all, physics is "the branch of science concerned with the nature and properties of matter and energy", so it is not particularly surprising that a person with a physics degree would have the right context to weigh in on claims about the structure of water crystals (matter).

Here's another take, if you're interested in digging a bit: The Pseudoscience of Masaru Emoto

100%, someone with a physics degree SHOULD weigh in, but with an actual argument. The argument cannot be, I have a physics degree, therefore this is BS. See the difference?

I genuinely wanted his take (since he had a background in physics) beyond claiming it was "BS because I said so." From the looks above, I got his take and a whole lot more haha.

Thanks for sharing the research!

Having a degree in anything is relevant because you can immediately tell when someone is misrepresenting themselves as knowledgeable in your field when in fact they are not. It is very common in alternative medicine for therapists to portray themselves as having a working knowledge about quantum physics and that their treatments are based on quantum physics. They will spout some gibberish about vibrating energy fields, superpositions and quantum this and that in order to convince you that their shitty crystals and magic hands can somehow cure diseases. There are several reasons why they do this:

1. Quantum physics sounds exciting. Everyone has heard stories about how cats can supposedly be dead and alive at the same time, that particles can be several places at once and that nature doesn't exist when you're not looking at it or whatever. They have heard about parallel universes and so on. It's all very sci-fi and engaging which just goes to show how easily people can be led to believe things about the world that aren't even fucking true. Which leads to my next point:

2. The general public's knowledge about quantum physics is piss poor. You can say all sorts of plausible gibberish by randomly stringing some science-y words together knowing that the likelihood that someone is going to arrest you for it is very low, and even lower for someone who is interested in alternative medicine in the first place. It's so easy in fact that you did it just now. Please, go on about "the interconnectedness of our environments and potential emotional states". That's so profound I might even puke. How's that for interconnectedness.

3. Lastly, the general public have a perception about quantum physicists as very intelligent and competent. Because it's supposedly so weird and full of complicated math it can only take a genius to understand it. Name-dropping quantum physics is literally the number 1 go-to when some dumbass with no grip on reality wants to act like they're smart. "I know quantum physics, therefore I am smart." "Quantum physics reveals how there is much more between Heaven and Earth than we think, therefore you should totally believe in my craniosacral horseshit."

"Quantum physics" does, as a matter of fact, NOT reveal "how things can resonate and interact with each other much more than we think". The term "quantum physics" refers to the set of phenomena that happens at atomic scales. In order to observe these phenomena you have to do experiments, something that Julian in his latest post is trying to bullshit himself out of. The only thing that is true in physics are outcomes of experiments. They are the be-all, end-all of physics. Outcomes of experiments are numbers. Like, how long did it take for the ball to hit the ground? Perhaps it took 6 seconds. If whatever bullshit idea you have about the world predicts anything else than 6 seconds outside of reasonable accuracy then it is wrong. If you are unable to demonstrate to others that your bullshit idea can predict the outcome of experiments, then it is wrong. If your bullshit idea somehow gets the outcome right, then it is the temporarily best description of that particular phenomenon. That is, until your bullshit idea fails to get the outcome right or another less bullshit idea comes about.

One such idea is quantum mechanics. It is quite literally a set of rules that you follow in which you input the information you have about a system and get predictive results as output. It doesn't say anything about what the system is; YOU define what the system is. It's on you to create a model which accurately represents the system you're trying to describe. The system may or may not have anything to do with the real world, but the reason anyone actually cares about quantum mechanics is that it has been successfully applied to systems of electrons orbiting atomic nuclei. It doesn't say anything about what electrons are or how they interact; again, that's on you. So the claim that quantum physics reveals how "things" interact is plain and simple bullshit. Instead it reveals how Julian likes to talk about things he knows nothing about. You'd think that this guy does it for a living or something.

A feature of quantum mechanics is that as the size of your system grows it gets crazy complicated really fast. At the molecular level you're already forced to abandon it in favor of effective descriptions like Newtonian mechanics; the same that you'd use to calculate the time it takes a ball to hit the ground. At larger scales quantum mechanics becomes utterly irrelevant. That's why the general public doesn't need to know quantum mechanics. Your doctor doesn't need to know quantum mechanics. Researchers in medicine don't need to know quantum mechanics. Susan Shore does not know quantum mechanics. When Julian pokes at your head with his magic hands or whatever it has nothing to do with quantum mechanics. Literally the only reason this dumbass has to mention quantum anything is to deceive you.

The scientific method applies to physics as well as to any kind of therapy. If you are unable to demonstrate that your snake oil, craniosacral money sucking straw out of sick and desperate people's pockets actually works, then you can take the straw and get bent. You can't go "therapy is therapy and science is science" and then have the audacity to sign with "Someone who is actually helping others get better". This guy is a pathological liar and gaslights people for a living. He portrays himself as this pure soul who just wants to help, who is the victim of the violent wrath of the naysayers, and also made sure to advertise his book and his shitty app. It is textbook charlatan behavior.

Actually, I dare you to give this prick your money. See what happens.

So the quote you quoted is me saying that you don't need a physics degree to read the available research on craniosacral therapy, that still stands.

My initial post was asking you, as someone who claims to have a physics degree, to weigh in on a particular topic with an actual argument, not an argument from authority. For example, I have a physics degree, therefore this is BS.

I genuinely wanted your thoughts (since I don't know anyone really with a physics degree) on why you think he was full of crap. It looks like I got that and a whole lot more, but thank you nonetheless for your lengthy response!

 

[Nick47]

That is your first big mistake, believing science has anything to do with tinnitus.

As a scientist, this is odd...

But I agree that Julian Cowan Hill should be avoided with noise-induced hearing loss.