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 E. Mark Stern
United States


Restless Legs: Panic With No Place to Go

E. Mark Stern


This subjective/experiential exploration of panic as it expresses itself as "restless leg syndrome" (i.e., a typical panic) had its onset during the course of six months of chemotherapy following surgery for Stage 3 colorectal cancer. The chemotherapy resulted in painful and near surreal sensations (associated as well with neuropathy) in my feet and legs. Having a five-decade background in clinical psychology with a major concentration in insight-oriented depth psychotherapy, I continue to regard myself as my most experienced patient. Despite all other claims on possible physiological etiologies, I thus choose, first and foremost, to seek possible psychological linkages and intuitive impressions, both as points of departure and enriching pathways, in reaching some level of managing the discomfort and accompanying "jitters" inherent in the phenomenon of restless legs.

My presentation, while personal, represents as well, a new clinical acumen in better being able to approach some of the broader dimensions of and in panic. Approaching this paradox of the panic of feeling trapped has experientially led to an expanded repertoire of unique ways of managing what has manifested itself as the plight of flailing for release.

My goal in reciting bits of my own history aids in both discovering "purpose" in expressive symptoms and in providing a dim enough lantern leading to directions that specific terrors may well provide. Taking for granted that ones organism retells old stories provoking the unconscious into a possibly useful immediacy, allows for a sharing of panic as a lingering narrative.

Restless legs may, in one sense, be an "answer" to incursions on personal freedom. The body's expressiveness as a self-organizing function, tutors patients and practitioners alike in the multiple realities that appears to result in a variety of panics along with a haunting litany of drives for both momentary and lasting release.

In conclusion: Everything I continue to experience in my restlessness and in my panic establishes fodder for an ever-emerging personalized clinical storehouse.