The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain

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Think Psychological: Whenever a person is in pain they should think of what repressed rage is causing the pain. This doesn't work against his larger thrust, though, that unalleviated stress can instigate actual physical problems. I don't think too many readers would find that conclusion startling.

While I'm totally on board with his distrust of contemporary medicine's pervasive medicate/operate mentality, which focuses solely on "cure" and not at all on "cause" or "prevention". Have you listened to any of Brian Holsopple’s other performances before? How does this one compare? Also, perfectionism and goodism might not always be related to low self-regard; it might just be a learned behavior from children with good self regard but over-achieving parents. Besides, "narcissistic rage" is only applicable to narcissists, according to Dr. Kohut, who coined the term, but Dr Sarno spreads it out to include anyone who has hurt self-esteem. Actually he cites it is as being universal in Western society ( why different in Eastern?). B.) – The traditional recommendation of physical therapy grated on me. (This is the doctor’s favorite method of treating pain when they do not know what do to with you.)

Contents

The Mindbody Prescription” is a book that offers readers a new perspective on pain management, emphasizing the role of the mind-body connection in chronic pain. The Mindbody Prescription has been translated into Korean, Japanese, Polish, Spanish, Turkish, Romanian, and Hebrew ( Source). This book is also filled with practical exercises and techniques that readers can use to identify and manage their emotional stressors, making it a useful tool for self-empowerment and long-term pain management.

I have had episodes of pain (that I didn't imagine) disappear after a few weeks on multiple occasions. I knew of TMS although I wasn't always consciously practicing any pain-mitigating mental strategy. I feel inclined to believe TMS was at play and thinking about it (as Sarno enjoins) helped counter it. But this is one person's anecdotal experience. Although much more widely known than TMS, the word about MPS has not exactly spread as far as it could. Some doctors and most manual therapists do know about MPS, but many others remain disconcertingly oblivious even to the phenomenon (let alone its hypothetical explanations and controversies). I got tired of talking to someone who might understand my pain because guess what?! NO ONE UNDERSTOOD MY PAIN!!! NO ONE!!! No more pretty sentences. No more orchestrated thoughts brought together to form a pleasing and meaningful sentence. No more telling myself it’s going to be okay and then shoving my true feelings down because it may come out and what will people think of me then?This is gut work! This is mining! This is getting dirty and taking off the controlled chains that keep me tidy, organized and presentable. Y'all I know this book's premise seems so goddamn incredulous. It's form is tedious and kinda sloppy, and Sarno occasionally jumps to certain conclusions that are somewhat dubious... but this book saved my hand, and possibly my life.

Before I read Sarno, I was still trying to gently beat trigger points into submission with physical manipulations, one of the methods taught by Travell/Simons, and popularized by many others. Sarno’s thinking persuaded me to enrich that approach with a strong emphasis on education and reassurance. Happily this is much more consistent with what I understand about pain science today. It is very important to note that he has a high success rate that can also be linked to the screening process. He purposely selects the patients he believes will be able to be open to his kind of therapy. In this case, I think he should be more careful in generalizing hidden emotions as cause for disease in so many diseases, as he does. His good results might be making him biased. I did get a strong feeling he might be exaggerating in some cases, such as Epstein-barr and fibromyalgia. But it is clear he gets it right many times in others.