Eva M Clark

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Eva M Clark is a Medical Hypnotherapist and NLP practitioner. She specializes in using these modalities with chronic disease. She has dedicated half a decade to understanding the mental patterns behind multiple sclerosis. She teaches an advanced course for hypnotherapist, NLP practitioners and psychotherapist that want to work on resolving the underlying cause of chronic disease and write their own case studies.
Address: Santa Cruz, California, United States

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Galen Strawson

The University of Texas at Austin

Steven Pinker

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Don Ross

University College Cork

Laurence J Kirmayer

McGill University

Shaun Gallagher

University of Memphis

John Johnson

Pennsylvania State University

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Università degli Studi di Parma (Italy)

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Universidad Diego Portales

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Papers by Eva M Clark

A new framework for understanding stress and disease: the developmental model of stress as applied to multiple sclerosis

Frontiers in integrative neuroscience, Jun 17, 2024

This paper proposes a new model of stress that integrates earlier models and adds insights from d... more This paper proposes a new model of stress that integrates earlier models and adds insights from developmental psychology. Previous models describe the behavioral and physical effects of stress events, but have not explained the translation of experiences into stress itself. The Developmental Model of Stress shows how psychosocial developmental challenges in childhood create persistent negative beliefs and behaviors that increase threat perception and maladaptive stress responses. These developmental challenges produce early psychological and physiological predispositions for increased stress responses over time. Ongoing stress leads to dysregulation of physical stress-response systems (allostatic load), which is associated with multiple diseases. High allostatic load provides the necessary preconditions for the diathesis-stress model, which says the addition of an acute stressor to a weakened or predisposed system can lead to disease development. The paper also documents the evolving measurement of stress to better understand the stress-disease relationship, helping to resolve conflicting results between studies. The Developmental Model of Stress was combined with clinician insight and patient reports to build an integrative framework for understanding the role of stress in the development and progression of multiple sclerosis (MS). It includes the first mapping of maladaptive beliefs and behaviors arising from developmental challenges that are common to people with MS. An initial comparison shows these may be distinct from those of people with other chronic diseases. These beliefs and behaviors form the predisposing factors and contribute to the triggering factors, which are the acute stressors triggering disease onset. These often took two forms, a prolonged incident experienced as feeling trapped or stuck, and threat of a breach in a relationship. The reinforcing factors add the stress of a chronic disease with a poor prognosis and seemingly random symptom fluctuation, still managed with the same beliefs and behaviors developed in childhood, increasing physiological dysregulation and symptom severity. A pilot study is described in which these three categories of stress factors in MS were explicitly addressed. This study noted clinically important improvements in physical and mental well-being, providing preliminary support for the Developmental Model. Future research might expand on the pilot using a more robust sample and design.

A new framework for understanding stress and disease: The developmental model of stress as applied to multiple sclerosis

by Michelle Fauver and Eva M Clark

Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 2024

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