John E. Sarno - To Be or Not to Be... Pain-Free: The Mindbody Syndrome

TO BE OR NOT TO BE PAIN-FREE

THE MINDBODY SYNDROME

MARC D. SOPHER, M.D.

Foreword by John E. Sarno, M.D.

Illustrations by Richard Evans

2003 by Marc D. Sopher. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

ISBN: 1-4107-0786-5 (e-book)
ISBN: 1-4107-0787-3 (Paperback)

ISBN13: 978-1-4107-0786-4 (ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2002096837

Illustrations by Richard Evans

Contents

To my father, Gilbert Sopher

I am grateful to Dr. John Sarno. He has been a teacher and a friend, generous in his time and support. Despite the many demands on his time, he took the time to review this and offer his always-sage advice. My wife, Michele, has been on board from day one, with her encouragement and critical eye as she reviewed the manuscript. My wonderful children, Max and Meredith, kept me in good spirits with their love, humor and sweet violin music.

I thank Richard Evans for his friendship and support. Always ready to lend an ear, Richard surprised me with the offer of his pen and artistry, for which I am doubly grateful. Pam Beauchamp was a great help with her friendship and outstanding transcription skills.

Cheers to Mac McGready for recommending that I write the book in the first place. Macs thoughts have always been appreciated, but Im holding off on his other suggestion for GOT TMS ? T RUST M ARC S OPHER tee shirts.

And of course, I would like to thank my patients who took the time to hear me out, as I offered them knowledge, instead of pills.

Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, everyone, both doctors and laymen, seems to know about stress and its affect on the body. The stress they have in mind has to do with the workplace, family matters, money, illness, and the like, and how these may make medical conditions worse. For example, it is well known that stress makes diabetes worse. But neither medicine nor the public seem to be aware that emotions play a causative role in almost all medical ills. In the first half of the 20 th century many medical papers were published documenting the role of the emotions in illness, prompting one physician interested in the field, Franz Alexander, to write in 1950:

Once again, the patient as a human being with worries, fears, hopes, and despairs, as an indivisible whole and not merely the bearer of organsof a diseased liver or stomachis becoming the legitimate object of medical interest.

But it was not to be. Interest in the indivisible whole never developed. Medicine instead began to focus on the chemistry and physics of the body and its illnesses and to ignore the possible role of emotions in health and disease. The result has been wonderful technological advances, but millions of Americans suffering needlessly from disorders whose roots are psychological, diagnostically beyond the ken of modern medicine. Emotionally induced pain disorders are epidemic in the United States and only a handful of physicians are aware of the nature of these disorders and are capable of diagnosing and treating them. Dr. Marc Sopher is one of those doctors. His book should be read by anyone suffering chronic pain of any kind or a variety of other common disorders, because his knowledge of the mindbody connection has allowed him to recognize and successfully treat many people with persistent symptoms, most of whom had tried multiple treatments without success. He is a diagnostician, a healer and doctor who knows that we are not merely complicated machines but an exceedingly complex animal whose personalities and feelings are intimately involved with everything that happens in the body.

John E. Sarno, M.D.

Knowledge is power.

Francis Bacon

(1561-1626)

You are probably in pain right now. That is why you are holding this book in your hands, looking for some relief. Perhaps you picked this up because you have heard of Dr. Sarno and TMS (tension myositis syndrome). Maybe a friend recommended this to you or you simply discovered it in the process of searching for answers. Your pain may be in your neck, back, legs, feet, head-it could be anywhere. With the information in this book, I am optimistic that you will be able to eliminate your pain, no matter where it is. You will do this with knowledge. Simply by changing how you think about the connection between your brain and body, you will begin to feel better. I will not be recommending oral medication, special exercises, surgery, injections, physical therapy, chiropractic manipulation, acupuncture, massage therapy, prolotherapy, or any other of the multitude of alternative therapies that have sprung up in an effort to combat the explosion of chronic and recurrent pain in our society. Just knowledge.

Through the process of education, you will gain a better understanding of how psychology can_affect physiology -how your brain can be responsible for the creation of very real physical pain. Armed with that knowledge, you will do battle with your brain and stop the pain. And you will have Dr. John Sarno to thank.

Much of the chronic and recurrent pain and discomfort that we all experience is psychologically induced. This is the premise of Dr. John Sarno, who coined the term tension myositis syndrome, or TMS, to better describe and treat this pain. He gave it this name because, in the early days of his work, it was his impression that muscle (myo) was the only tissue involved. Having realized in recent years that nerves, tendons and other body systems could be targeted by the brain in the disorder that he has described, we have decided that another term would be a more accurate designation for the entire process. After much thought and discussion, he and I have agreed that the term, The Mindbody Syndrome, would be a better choice and would be used henceforth in place of tension myositis syndrome. This has the virtue of retaining the acronym, TMS, which has become familiar to many that have read Dr. Sarnos work. Dr. Sarno, an attending physician at the Howard A. Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine and professor of clinical rehabilitation medicine at the New York University School of Medicine, has helped thousands of people in his own practice and thousands more with his books explaining TMS. TMS most commonly affects the back, neck, and legs, but can affect any part of the body or organ system. Some common TMS disorders include headaches, irritable bowel syndrome, dyspepsia, gastroesophageal reflux disorder (GERD), carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), plantar fasciitis, temporomandibular joint syndrome (TMJ), and fibromyalgia. Using todays popular lingo, TMS is a mindbody disorder -the symptoms arise from the mind and are experienced by the body. Thus, The Mindbody Syndrome is an appropriate title.

TMS is a strategy of the brains to keep unpleasant thoughts and emotions from rising from the unconscious into the conscious mind. The brain, through established physiologic pathways, creates pain as a distraction. By focusing our attention on physical symptoms, we keep these painful thoughts and emotions repressed. This is a very effective strategy as there is an absolute epidemic of mindbody disorders in our society.

Eliminating the pain is startlingly simple. We can banish the pain and thwart the brains strategy by simply understanding and accepting that the pain has a psychological causation, that it is not physically based.