Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection

Sarno, John

ISBN 10: 1559279958 ISBN 13: 9781559279956

Publisher: Renaissance Audio, 2004

Synopsis

Dr. John E. Sarno is a medical pioneer whose mind-body approach has helped patients overcome their back conditions - without drugs or dangerous surgery. Now, using his latest research into TMS, Dr. Sarno goes one step further. After identifying stress and other psychological factors in back pain, he demonstrates how many of his patients have then gone on to heal themselves without exercise or other physical therapy. With case histories and the results of in-depth mind-body research, Dr. Sarno describes how patients recognise the emotional roots of their TMS and sever the connections between mental and physical pain - and how, just by listening to this programme, you may start recovering from back pain today!

About this title

Review:

Healing Back Pain promises permanent elimination of back pain without drugs, surgery or exercise. It should have been titled Understanding TMS Pain, because it discusses one particular cause of back pain---Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS)--and isn't really a program for self-treatment, with only five pages of action plan (and many more pages telling why conventional methods don't work). According to John E. Sarno, M.D., TMS is the major cause of pain in the back, neck, shoulders, buttocks and limbs--and it is caused not by structural abnormalities but by the mind's effort to repress emotions. He's not saying that your pain is all in your head; rather, that the battle going on in your mind results in a real physical disorder, which may affect muscles, nerves, tendons or ligaments. An injury may have triggered the disorder, but is not the cause of the amount or intensity of the resulting pain. According to Sarno, the mind tricks you into not facing repressed emotion by making you focus on pain in the body. When this realisation sinks in ("and it must sink in, for mere intellectual appreciation of the process is not enough"),the trick doesn't work any more and there's no need for the pain.(Healing BackPain should not be used for self-diagnosis. Always consult a physician for chronic or acute back pain). --Joan Price

Review:

"My life before Dr. Sarno was filled with excruciating back and shoulder pain. For twenty years I also suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder and thought my back pain was due to my height or some sort of spine problem and that my OCD was a chemical imbalance and only treatable with medication. But all my thoughts were wrong. Imagine the miracle in my life when in a matter of weeks my back pain disappeared. Imagine my shock when I applied Dr. Sarno's principles and never suffered a single symptom again. Quite simply - I owe Dr. Sarno a lot." --Howard Stern "For fifteen years, my life revolved around my back. I took time off from work, conducted meetings lying on the floor and slept with ice bags. Could this be psychogenic? I had considered Dr. Sarno's ideas preposterous, but ten years ago I was talked into seeing him. I haven't had back problems since. If Dr. Sarno is right a about other psychogenic pain, America is wasting billions of dollars. What a tragedy." --John Stossel, correspondent, 20/20 "John Sanro has changed my life and the lives of all the people to whom I have recommended him. He was healing patients with the mind-body connection long before anyone else I know. He is a true miracle worker." --Ann Bancroft

About this edition

• Publisher: Renaissance Audio
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1559279958
• ISBN 13: 9781559279956
• Binding: Audio CD