The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain

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Dr . Sarno raises a fascinating, too-overlooked point: we, as humans, have not survived all of these thousands of years on Earth because we are weaklings. If our bodies were as fragile as current fashionable medicine proclaims, humanity would have died out years ago. Carpal tunnel syndrome, for example, was not identified as a problem until the last 20-30 years, and it is the current awareness of it that inadvertently creates the problem in the first place.

I would agree that PT in general doesn't really help with the pain but it can build up all core muscles to the point that an actual physical strain in weak core ligaments and muscles is more preventable.

Appendix A: A better low back pain book

By sharing real-life stories of patients who have overcome chronic pain through his approach, Dr. Sarno helps you to understand the effectiveness of his method and gives you hope that you too can overcome your pain. Miscellaneous: This includes hypoglycemia, dizziness, tinnitus, chronic fatigue syndrome, and spasmodic dysphonia. My favorite phrase from the book: "Further, it is demeaning to patients to suggest that they are deriving benefits from the malady". As someone who has suffered a long time with fibromyalgia, THANK YOU DR SARNO. I'm reluctant to rate this book. It sounds very convincing and both the symptoms and history of my RSI issues fit the narrative perfectly, but I feel I should give it a fair shot before having an opinion. Learn how repressed emotions contribute to chronic pain and how to treat it without medical, physical interventions, or surgery.

The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain” by Dr. John Sarno is a pioneering book that challenges traditional medical thinking surrounding the treatment of chronic pain. The invocation of psychoanalytical theory is either too much or too little. It's there for a good reason--to help assuage the doubts of more analytical readers, giving a scientific basis to psychological side of the book. For my taste, it didn't delve far enough--it just let me with a lot more questions.Despite undergoing numerous medical treatments, including surgery, Tom’s pain persisted. However, after reading Dr. Sarno’s book and learning about the mind-body connection, Tom began to explore his emotional stressors and repressed anger. It is my impression that ‘pain-killing’ drugs improve the patient’s mood rather than take away the pain.

We must learn to recognize nature’s truths even though we don’t understand them, for some of those truths may still be beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend. What we need is a compound prescription of humility, imagination, devotion to the truth and, above all, confidence in the eternal wisdom of nature.So this is another great quality of Dr. Sarno's book: spread awareness to doctors and patients. Unfortunately, even with this awareness, there are not enough professionals specialized in mindbody diseases; you either go to a psychologist, or a doctor. Unusually, he is a doctor who uses a psychological approach: be aware of your unconscious feelings and the pain will disappear.

But they’re covered over with endless repetition, and it feels like a snake oil salesman’s approach. If the patient doesn’t accept his ideas then he can’t recover. Such circular reasoning - “if you accept my thesis you will recover. If not, you won’t. If you don’t recover, you need psychotherapy to keep exploring my thesis.” The thesis is that it’s unconscious rage which causes many common ailments, and once one learned of this fact, the rage will no longer have a negative effect and the pain/ailment will dissipate. Yet the very definition of unconscious rage means it can’t be proven or disproven. Therefore the doctor is always right and the patient can’t argue any counterpoints. While Dr. Sarno’s approach has helped many patients overcome chronic pain, it is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Some patients may require additional medical treatments or therapies, and this book does not provide guidance on how to integrate his techniques with other treatments. Have you listened to any of Brian Holsopple’s other performances before? How does this one compare? After all, patients don't come into their office with an emotional complaint, but a physical one; doctors do the best they can with the knowledge they have. When doctors sense a strong emotional state, they usually refer the patient to a psychologist- they pass it on. That can be frustrating for them, and even more to the patient, who feels his symptoms are not being taken seriously.

Some more quibbles

Here comes the problem: he is not a psychologist. And the works he bases his psychological explanations are old, if not outdated. Most of the works cited are from the nineties (the most recent ones), some of the seventies, and even a lot of importance given to Freud's theories developed more than eighty years ago. But there is also this fascinating concept about how the mind and body work together, and how our brains can tell us we are in pain when really what we are experiencing is some big emotion that the brain is not allowing us to feel (he speaks of rage and anger, Nicole Sachs broadens that to any big emotions or stress). The autoimmune side of it is more complicated, and he does not suggest that those illnesses can be cured by this knowledge, awareness, and the practices he suggests. There is hope, hope for people who have chronic pain and misery to learn how to help the brain stop using pain sensations to "protect" us from big feelings. I've already experienced relief, and I believe this will continue. I truly do thank God for this information and these insights. By exploring the mind-body connection and the role of psychological factors in chronic pain, Dr. Sarno offers you a fresh perspective on pain management that is both empowering and effective. Accessible writing style