dailyBooks - Healing Back Pain--The Mind-Body Connection by John E. Sarno | Conversation Starters

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John E. Sarnos

Healing Back Pain

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Introducing Healing Back Pain

W hile working at the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine in New York, Dr. Sarno realized that, in many of his patients, conventional treatments werent working. These patients all presented physical symptoms like back, neck and shoulder pain and stiffness, but they all also suffered from underlying tensions. Dr. Sarno then came up with the idea of Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS), a concept he introduces in Healing Back Pain. TMS is also known as Mind Body Syndrome and Dr. Sarno defines it simply as a shift of the state of the muscles that results in pain. TMS can manifest in different ways; Dr. Sarno worked initially with back, neck and shoulder issues, but TMS can result in headaches, migraines, pelvic pain, gastrointestinal complaints, fibromyalgia, carpal tunnel, chronic fatigue, dizziness, insomnia, vertigo, and even psychological issues such as depression, phobias, anxiety and other disorders.

Dr. Sarno explains in his book that physical pain doesnt necessarily come from a physical cause. He says that a physical pain that sometimes is considered chronic can be healed with no invasive medical treatments. This is because TMS comes from the repression of unpleasant, embarrassing or painful emotions. Even if we dont realize it, our bodies respond to these repressed emotions with muscle tension.

Oxygen also has a key role in TMS; while we are suppressing emotions, our autonomic nervous system activates an automatic response of fight, flight or freeze. The oxygen is then channeled to all the large organs that our body needs to defend itself against the threat. Because our body is so efficient, it drains oxygen from other smaller parts like muscles, tendons, ligaments and nerves, resulting in oxygen deprivation. The lack of oxygen leads to tension and physical pain.

The author also talks about the unconscious mind and how it can complicate our problems even further. This happens because most people, most of the time, are not aware that they are repressing emotions. For some people, ignoring, hiding or controlling their emotions has become a part of how they live and they dont even realize it. Dr. Sarno explains that the majority of mental and emotional activity in our brains occurs below the level of consciousness, and he compares the human mind to an iceberg: the conscious mind, the part that we are aware of, represents only a small part of the total. The complicated processing happens in the subconscious mind.

Dr. Sarno discovered, along with a psychoanalyst colleague, that theres another active part of TMS, one that works to divert our attention from figuring out whats happening in our emotional world: distractions. Pain and discomfort are physical distractions that work as defense mechanisms to prevent our emotions from coming to the surface. They have the ability to attract our attention, precisely because they are frightening, painful or disabling.

Another important point that Dr. Sarno talks about has to do with conditioning. He claims that we can become conditioned to think that a certain act, or a person, place, or time, can cause us pain. For example, if a person experienced pain one day when they got up from a chair, their brain can associate sitting with the pain and it will expect pain every time that person sits. Dr. Sarno says that conditioning can be so strong that people could even be conditioned by what other people say or by what they read.

Dr. Sarno writes about how our personalities can influence TMS. In the book, the author lists the types of personalities of people who commonly experience TMS, and they often are perfectionists, competitive, people who need to get ahead and are often more critical of themselves, people who work excessively, people who worry too much, who are compulsive or irritable, people with low self-esteem and people who carry a strong sense of responsibility and are often very accomplished.

Dr. Sarno claims that about 95% of the patients that went through his program healed their pain without the need for psychotherapy. They were able to do this simply by being aware about the source of their tensions, about what was happening between their minds and their bodies. He indicates, however, that the process can be slow and expecting overnight success could lead to frustration and disappointment.

Dr. Sarno tells how he started teaching people about what the thought was going on with them. This, to his surprise, delivered excellent results. He says that educating the patient about the TMS was an essential therapeutic factor. He changed his treatment from medical interventions to workshops, group discussions, videos and books.

Finally, Dr. Sarno explains that, in his opinion, is better to resume all physical activity as soon as possible. One of the things that happen when a person has chronic pain is that they sometimes stop doing things because they hurt or start doing new things to avoid the pain. Dr. Sarno says that once someone with pain accepted the TMS and realized that it comes from their emotions, then there is nothing physically wrong with them. He encourages all his patients to resume normal activity even if it feels scary.