Steve Ray Ozanichy - Dr. John Sarno’s Top 10 Healing Discoveries

Dr. John Sarnos
Top 10
Healing
Discoveries

Steve Ozanich

Foreword by

Andrea Leonard-Segal, MD

Disclaimer:

This book contains medical and psychological information relating to health care. It is not intended to be a supplement for medical or psychological treatment or evaluation. It is strongly recommended that you seek professional advice regarding your health before attempting to incorporate into your life any advice enclosed. Therefore, both the publisher and the author should not be held responsible for any medical outcomes that may result from utilizing the methods contained or suggested in this book. Exhaustive efforts have been made to secure the accuracy of the information contained within this bookas of first publication.

Copyright 2016 Steven Ray Ozanich.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or photocopying, except for brief quotations for the purpose of critical review, without written permission from the author.

ISBN: 978-0-9965866-1-0

First Edition

Designed by Steve Ozanich

Cover layout and design: Taylor Krzeszowski

Publisher: Silver Cord Records, Inc.

PO Box 8513

Warren, OH 44484

SteveOzanich.com

Printed on acid-free paper

For Doctor Sarno

You changed the world

but the world doesnt know it yet.

Contents

Foreword

Dr. Sarnos work on mindbody healing, while a Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at New York University Medical Center, changed countless lives for the better with lasting effects. He was a brilliant, observant, and caring physician who was courageous enough to see chronic pain in a completely new way and to change the way it was diagnosed and treated. Over the past 50 years, he has helped at minimum tens of thousands of people to heal, thousands who were lucky enough to see him as patients in his office, and vast, incalculable numbers of patients who benefitted from reading one of his four books on the diagnosis and treatment of chronic pain that are published worldwide in multiple languages. Even though Dr. Sarno has now retired from his medical practice, he continues to regularly receive correspondence from new patients who have recently read one of his books on the condition that he calls the Tension Myoneural Syndrome (TMS) and have felt compelled to express their endless gratitude to him for bringing them back to health.

I am a physician, board certified in internal medicine and rheumatology, in practice at the George Washington University Center for Integrative Medicine and on the clinical faculty at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. It was my honor to have collaborated with Dr. Sarno professionally for more than 25 years. I was thrilled when Columbia University Medical Center asked me to make a presentation honoring Dr. Sarnos work at a conference on psychosomatic medicine that was held in January of 2016. This public recognition of the major impact that Dr. Sarnos work has made on health care is long overdue.

Dr. Sarno was my wisest and best mentor and is a dear friend. In my own medical practice, I have treated patients from all over the world and all over the United States, who have traveled far distances to find a cure for their pain. Before I understood Dr. Sarnos work and how to diagnose and treat patients with TMS, I was making the usual diagnoses that physicians make and prescribing the standard care treatments to help patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain syndromes like common back and neck pain, fibromyalgia, rotator cuff syndrome, carpal tunnel syndrome, etc. These standard care treatments (e.g., some pain medications, back surgery, physical therapy) were not well validated by well-conducted clinical trials in the medical literature. Despite this, they were, and still are, widely recommended by many well-intended physicians and other healthcare professionals who are, unfortunately, not able to understand or are not interested in the impact of the mind on the well-being of the body. Once I understood the underlying psychological etiology of these conditions and started making the TMS diagnosis and using a psychological approach to treatment, my ability to help my patients soared.

Any patient who is not feeling well should see a physician to be sure that there is nothing serious causing the problem. Once serious conditions, such as cancer, infection, or fracture are ruled out, it is important to consider whether psychological factors could be responsible for the physical symptoms.

Steve Ozanich, a former back pain patient who suffered for years while receiving the usual diagnoses and treatments, ultimately healed because of Dr. Sarnos discoveries. In this book, he has succinctly captured many of the principles that Dr. Sarno taught to patients. This is a small book with a big message.

Introduction

When I was first introduced to Dr. John Sarnos work in the mid-1990s, I rejected it forthwith. Like the majority of those who cannot come to accept it, I didnt understand it, and hadnt grown tired enough of my suffering to listen. Now, two decades later I teach the work to others.

Daily, I educate suffering individuals on exactly what the good doctors oeuvre is about. I have been witness to those aspects of his work that have been the most helpful in healing; those ideas that have risen to the forefront in their impact on public awareness, and therefore healing.

In this book, I have ordered those concepts into a list of insights that I have observed make the most powerful impact. Even though it is impossible to assign numerical values to psychological concepts, this top 10 catalogue of breakthrough discoveries is changing lives every day. The purpose of the list itself is to pull together a very complex body of work into an easily readable and understandable form. Within greater understanding comes healing.

The core of Dr. Sarnos original body of work has been distorted, spun, and diluted in many cleverly marketable ways by those who dont clearly understand it, who do not make appropriate attribution, and who are seeking to profit materially from Dr. Sarnos work. The spin, which masquerades as newest insights and revelations on the work are not new at all and, in fact, have tended to focus on the physical arena once again. This is a terrible shame because Dr. Sarnos discoveries into mindbody medicine are unparalleled as was his ability to successfully diagnose and treat his patients. Nonetheless, his work remains at the cutting edge of understanding and will be for some time.

Here is the heart of what the good doctor revealed to the world.

Dr. John Sarnos Top 10 Observations

In my minds eye, I can still see pages of Healing Back Pain flying from their cover, as I threw the book against the fireplace above mepaper scattering to the floor where I was lying, in severe pain. I had a pretty good arm back then. I was also more foolish in those days. I had rejected what could have saved me from great agony, choosing the hard road over truth. However, the best thing I ever did for myself was to piece that book back together, and begin to read again with an open mind.

I had the same initial reaction to Dr. Sarnos work that many sufferers do. I felt that it didnt apply to methat it was nonsense! I had to get much worse before I would finally listen, and then heal. It wasnt so much about putting his book back together, as it was about putting my life back together.

I needlessly suffered through pain for 30 years. When it finally became unbearable, I was forced into seeing deeper. Today Im free. If I hadnt gotten dramatically worse I would never have healed. As with many former sufferers, I chose to stay in pain until I couldnt tolerate it any more. People will limp around, bend gingerly, move differently, limit themselves in activity, and repeatedly visit doctors, rather than to accept healing. Thanks to Dr. John Sarno, we now know why.