Reading Dr Sarno’s book was like a trip to Lourdes for me.
After a cycling injury I was imprisoned by pain, and could barely walk to the shops.
My chief joy - tour cycling - gone forever.
Within a week of reading his book I cycled down to the shops. Soon I was restored to perfect health.
It was the profoundest experience of my life.
Dr Sarno’s insight that the body locates psychosomatic (emotional) pain in the precise same spot as your physical injury thus tricking you into thinking you have some incurable malady was an insight of genius.
Once it is pointed out it is like having a conjuring trick explained so you no longer fall prey to the illusion.
Like finding out the gun pointed at you is loaded with blanks.
Though Dr Sarno is sadly dead, I still write unsent letters of thanks to him.
My GP just wanted to put me on painkillers for the rest of my life.
I told him I wanted a diagnosis not mere suppression of symptoms.
He didn’t like that and told me there was nothing else on the table.
In despair I went to see Dr Google and discovered Dr. Sarno.
Hi Malcolm so glad that the book helped you. I daresay you are a young man compared with me as my cycling days are well and truly over anyway. I wondered if this is the book you read as there are three. I ask as I suffer huge amounts of pain constantly. I had a compression fracture a few years back but was able to cope fine with that but then become vax injured in 2021 which has affected my joints and muscles and to cap it, peripheral neuropathy diagnosed with an EMG which fairly recently, is causing loss of balance which resulted in me falling backwards over the bath in the early hours a week or so ago. Nothing broken fortunately but scary at the time until i hauled myself out. Now I can see the funny side of an old girl found with legs dangling over the bath. On a more serious note, do you think Dr Sarno's book might help me, thanks, Elaine https://www.amazon.co.uk/Healing-Back-Pain-Reissue-Connection/dp/153871261X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=9780759520844&linkCode=qs&qid=1676815458&s=books&sr=1-1
Sorry to hear about your suffering. Yes, that is the book, he wrote three but they are all basically the same. It’s not for me to say whether it would work for you, I don't know enough and it would be presumptuous of me to diagnose online. In essence his approach is directed at people who have chronic pain but for which there seems to be no structural cause. That is to say, they are not injured. Of course plenty of people are injured, and the first thing Dr Sarno and other practitioners do is tell you to get thoroughly checked out by a doctor. But, if you do that and nothing is found then it is time to consider the mind-body connect which forms the basis of his approach. You need to be open to the possibility of such a thing and plenty of people are hostile to it and for those people, sadly, it just won’t work. The great thing about it is, you don’t need to do any exercises that might make things worse, you don’t need to take drugs or supplements, you just need to understand something. I recommend you read the book and see what you think. If it seems like it might be helpful there is a whole universe of resources on line to help you further. You can find them all listed, along with much else besides, at this site:
Unfortunately my pain is through an actual cause.. I have two friends in a similar situation with the vax and neuropathy and sadly both are now in wheelchairs. I haven't got to that stage but I was half laughing to myself this afternoon as I tried to go for a walk and I realised I must look like I'm walking like Baptiste. Thank you for the link I will certainly have a look.
You are obviously a good egg as they say and am very pleased you have found comfort in the book.
I was having pain in one wrist and then the other in 1998. I was 36. I went on disability. I went to a neurologist, rheumatologist, orthopedic. Nothing they prescribed could get rid of the pain. My mom heard of Dr. Sarno’s book. I read it and shortly after started adopting his way of viewing my pain. The pain went away. That book saved my life. It also changed how I viewed the medical establishment, which as a former scientist, was also painful.
Dr Edward Bach in the 1930s came to the same conclusion. After years of practice, he found that whatever physical condition he was presented with, it would inevitably be a core issue of emotional trauma/hurt/experience that was the root cause for the physical expression.
A fundamental concept that Naturopathic Medicine has also worked with.😉🤗
It's also a foundational concept in yogic medicine- we are actually mind (energy) so everything ultimately comes back to energy (electrons, protons, etc).
Feb 16, 2023·edited Feb 16, 2023Liked by Dr Tess Lawrie, MBBCh, PhD
I have just passed this information on to my daughter who suffers chronic pain from a shoulder injury. Thank you for sharing this and thank you for everything you do Dr Lawrie.
Thank you for sorting out the commenting Tess. This seems to be happening a lot now, and not being able to comment (unless paying) limits the conversation considerably. I understand if the substack is a pay-only read that the comments would be also. But not when anyone can read it. Again, thank you xx
A ten day Vipassana meditation retreat cleared up my gut problems more than any diet or probiotics managed to. I would suggest a lot of illness is psychosomatic in nature. I also noticed that the true believers in a deadly pandemic seemed to have far worse symptoms when they finally caught the cough that was going around.
Physical symptoms, pain included are simply unresolved conflicts in the mind that are projected onto physicval reality, in the case of pain or disease, on the body. Sickness is thus an opportunity to heal, not a condition to be feared. The conflict behind the illness could have been resolved on the mind level, except it wasn't and it now leads to a physical expression as pain or a disease. Healing is not possible as long as we think that we are a victim of the disease. Healing begins when we take responsibility for our condition and realize that it is our best opportunity to heal.
Wonderful to see this and I can’t wait to watch. I’ve read Steve’s book, several times over and learn something new with each reading. I did a virtual consultation with him in 2020; he’s a lovely human and has so much to offer to those who are willing to keep an open mind as to the reasons behind so much of our physical aches and pains. TMS is real and I believe all humans have it to one degree or another. My hope is that one day, this perspective on pain will be more widely accepted and made accessible to all people.
I have many autoimmune issues and chronic inflammatory response syndrome, from a genetic mutation for mold and biotoxin illness. An mmr booster in 2001 had me on disability by 2003. I started a treatment called VIP , a peptide spray a few months ago. My pain is reduced and the plaque in my brain is being removed. I’m mentioning this because for 20 years I was told most of my pain was of my creation. I went to counseling for years. Along with insurance dictated doctors for the individual autoimmune issues. It was humiliating and frustrating. I’m functioning much higher now on a daily basis. I’m glad this is helping people but for me a peptide my broken body wasn’t able to produce is a miracle.
From a pro consciousness perspective, physical matter is created and influenced by multiple energetic layers including the mind. Duality has been a convenient construct by the allopathic tradition to simply focus on the physical thereby excluding the underlying cause manifesting as dis-ease.
Well, when I was 5, I had a huge wart on my knee. Whenever I fell on it, it would bleed. My great uncle told me he’d rub it off. Every day, he rubbed the wart a bit, very gently and told me it would go away. I remember seeing it get smaller every day. Did my uncle have special powers or was it my mind?
For years I had pain that simply began with a stretch before going walking - it didn't happen that day or for many days and months afterward. I was in constant pain. The hip doctor would say it was my back and the back doctor would say it was my hip. I (not the doctors) discovered it was my SI Joint. I then had an SI Joint fusion - the pain continued for months. I don't know how I find it but I found a book called "Back in Control" by a spine surgeon, David Hanscom. Then a book called "The Hidden Psychology of Pain" by Dr. James Alexander. Then "The Divided Mind" by Dr. Sarno. As was explained in these books, when in chronic pain for so long and then have surgery sometimes the pain continues even though the surgery was successful. I did the writing exercises and within a short time improved to being able to literally climb mountains.
Walking and hiking are what I love to do. They are not only good exercise, but they clear the mind. Unfortunately a chiropractor hurt me in January 2022 and now I am back in that situation I was in in 2014 where all I can do is what I must because of the pain.
I think I need to read these books again because. Thanks, Tess, for the reminder.
I am a practicing family physician in Port Elizabeth, South Africa ( 31 years experience).
6 months ago I “discovered” the incredible power of low dose ketamine infusions to assist in effecting this transformation of “thinking” that you refer to.
I have treated severely depressed and anxious patients (most successfully with accompanying assisted psychotherapy , before during and after infusions).Their attending psychiatrists and psychologists are deeply impressed , but want to see more good results before becoming true believers (quite understandable).
I have seen amazing turnarounds in the health and wellbeing of fibromyalgia patients.
One lady particularly has recovered from 16 years of severe pain, fatigue, brain fog and depression after 6 moderate dose infusions .Over the years she was that “heart sink patient “ whose name on my appointment list would instantly chill my mood and crumple my posture: I felt so impotent about assisting her. She was taking all the usual “rheumatology specialist” advised meds with no discernible benefit. At 44 years of age her quality of life was worse than that of a 98 year old bed ridden frail care inmate 😩
We had to persist with the sessions but slowly, progressively and astonishingly she has made a full recovery.
I credit my “awakening” to the Covid debacle with its brutal and uncomfortable unmasking of the captured state of the medical profession. I have communicated to you before how I and many other colleagues became full on Ivermectin believers in Jan 21.
Following the FLCCC and yourself (including the tragic capitulation by Andrew Hill) I realized that powerful repurposed meds were being ignored: and that the most heinous culprits were arrogant academics who have a way of casting doubt on anything that meets their disapproval (for reasons that have nothing to do with safety, efficacy or “evidence”).
So now I have set up a ketamine infusion Clinic at my rooms. I still haven’t advertised as I am building experience and expertise cautiously. Very much like my experience with IVM, it was a case of “is this stuff really as good as they say?” Well, to say that I have been absolutely “blown away” is an understatement: like my nursing staff say , “it’s goose bump stuff”. Nowadays I actually look forward to seeing chronic pain (physical and psychological) sufferers because the turn around is just so gratifying to witness.
I am actively researching LDN (low dose naltrexone) now and plan to add that to my therapeutic armamentarium soon. Once again, it will be a case of , let me give it a go: it’s safe , so there is nothing to lose. Maybe another awakening awaits me.
Megadose vitamin D will come next.
For me the Covid debacle induced liberation from the mental capture that most doctor’s are under (and can’t even begin to recognize it) has been incredibly refreshing.
Many of my generation colleagues are worn out and retiring: whereas I feel I have just got going, I LOVE what I am discovering and this is why I did medicine.🌴👯♀️😎
Reading Dr Sarno’s book was like a trip to Lourdes for me.
After a cycling injury I was imprisoned by pain, and could barely walk to the shops.
My chief joy - tour cycling - gone forever.
Within a week of reading his book I cycled down to the shops. Soon I was restored to perfect health.
It was the profoundest experience of my life.
Dr Sarno’s insight that the body locates psychosomatic (emotional) pain in the precise same spot as your physical injury thus tricking you into thinking you have some incurable malady was an insight of genius.
Once it is pointed out it is like having a conjuring trick explained so you no longer fall prey to the illusion.
Like finding out the gun pointed at you is loaded with blanks.
Though Dr Sarno is sadly dead, I still write unsent letters of thanks to him.
My GP just wanted to put me on painkillers for the rest of my life.
I told him I wanted a diagnosis not mere suppression of symptoms.
He didn’t like that and told me there was nothing else on the table.
In despair I went to see Dr Google and discovered Dr. Sarno.
Thank you Dr. Sarno.
This is amazing and wonderful to read, thank you so much for sharing Malcolm!
Thank you for sharing. I just downloaded the book and already love I, having only read the introduction so far.
Hi Malcolm so glad that the book helped you. I daresay you are a young man compared with me as my cycling days are well and truly over anyway. I wondered if this is the book you read as there are three. I ask as I suffer huge amounts of pain constantly. I had a compression fracture a few years back but was able to cope fine with that but then become vax injured in 2021 which has affected my joints and muscles and to cap it, peripheral neuropathy diagnosed with an EMG which fairly recently, is causing loss of balance which resulted in me falling backwards over the bath in the early hours a week or so ago. Nothing broken fortunately but scary at the time until i hauled myself out. Now I can see the funny side of an old girl found with legs dangling over the bath. On a more serious note, do you think Dr Sarno's book might help me, thanks, Elaine https://www.amazon.co.uk/Healing-Back-Pain-Reissue-Connection/dp/153871261X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=9780759520844&linkCode=qs&qid=1676815458&s=books&sr=1-1
Hi Elaine,
Sorry to hear about your suffering. Yes, that is the book, he wrote three but they are all basically the same. It’s not for me to say whether it would work for you, I don't know enough and it would be presumptuous of me to diagnose online. In essence his approach is directed at people who have chronic pain but for which there seems to be no structural cause. That is to say, they are not injured. Of course plenty of people are injured, and the first thing Dr Sarno and other practitioners do is tell you to get thoroughly checked out by a doctor. But, if you do that and nothing is found then it is time to consider the mind-body connect which forms the basis of his approach. You need to be open to the possibility of such a thing and plenty of people are hostile to it and for those people, sadly, it just won’t work. The great thing about it is, you don’t need to do any exercises that might make things worse, you don’t need to take drugs or supplements, you just need to understand something. I recommend you read the book and see what you think. If it seems like it might be helpful there is a whole universe of resources on line to help you further. You can find them all listed, along with much else besides, at this site:
https://www.tmswiki.org/w/index.php?page=The_Tension_Myositis_Syndrome_Wiki
Good luck!
Hi Malcolm
That is so kind of you to reply so quickly.
Unfortunately my pain is through an actual cause.. I have two friends in a similar situation with the vax and neuropathy and sadly both are now in wheelchairs. I haven't got to that stage but I was half laughing to myself this afternoon as I tried to go for a walk and I realised I must look like I'm walking like Baptiste. Thank you for the link I will certainly have a look.
You are obviously a good egg as they say and am very pleased you have found comfort in the book.
Take care, Elaine
I was having pain in one wrist and then the other in 1998. I was 36. I went on disability. I went to a neurologist, rheumatologist, orthopedic. Nothing they prescribed could get rid of the pain. My mom heard of Dr. Sarno’s book. I read it and shortly after started adopting his way of viewing my pain. The pain went away. That book saved my life. It also changed how I viewed the medical establishment, which as a former scientist, was also painful.
Dr Edward Bach in the 1930s came to the same conclusion. After years of practice, he found that whatever physical condition he was presented with, it would inevitably be a core issue of emotional trauma/hurt/experience that was the root cause for the physical expression.
A fundamental concept that Naturopathic Medicine has also worked with.😉🤗
It's also a foundational concept in yogic medicine- we are actually mind (energy) so everything ultimately comes back to energy (electrons, protons, etc).
I have just passed this information on to my daughter who suffers chronic pain from a shoulder injury. Thank you for sharing this and thank you for everything you do Dr Lawrie.
Thank you Patricia, I hope it helps your daughter!
I've seen and experienced how a positive mental outlook produces extraordinary physical benifits. Count me in.
Thank you for sorting out the commenting Tess. This seems to be happening a lot now, and not being able to comment (unless paying) limits the conversation considerably. I understand if the substack is a pay-only read that the comments would be also. But not when anyone can read it. Again, thank you xx
A ten day Vipassana meditation retreat cleared up my gut problems more than any diet or probiotics managed to. I would suggest a lot of illness is psychosomatic in nature. I also noticed that the true believers in a deadly pandemic seemed to have far worse symptoms when they finally caught the cough that was going around.
We need to start realizing that pain originates in the mind, because the mind is the source of everything, the physical is a second order phenomenon.
https://www.bernardokastrup.com/2019/09/guest-essay-metaphysical-rubber-meets.html
Physical symptoms, pain included are simply unresolved conflicts in the mind that are projected onto physicval reality, in the case of pain or disease, on the body. Sickness is thus an opportunity to heal, not a condition to be feared. The conflict behind the illness could have been resolved on the mind level, except it wasn't and it now leads to a physical expression as pain or a disease. Healing is not possible as long as we think that we are a victim of the disease. Healing begins when we take responsibility for our condition and realize that it is our best opportunity to heal.
Wonderful to see this and I can’t wait to watch. I’ve read Steve’s book, several times over and learn something new with each reading. I did a virtual consultation with him in 2020; he’s a lovely human and has so much to offer to those who are willing to keep an open mind as to the reasons behind so much of our physical aches and pains. TMS is real and I believe all humans have it to one degree or another. My hope is that one day, this perspective on pain will be more widely accepted and made accessible to all people.
I have many autoimmune issues and chronic inflammatory response syndrome, from a genetic mutation for mold and biotoxin illness. An mmr booster in 2001 had me on disability by 2003. I started a treatment called VIP , a peptide spray a few months ago. My pain is reduced and the plaque in my brain is being removed. I’m mentioning this because for 20 years I was told most of my pain was of my creation. I went to counseling for years. Along with insurance dictated doctors for the individual autoimmune issues. It was humiliating and frustrating. I’m functioning much higher now on a daily basis. I’m glad this is helping people but for me a peptide my broken body wasn’t able to produce is a miracle.
From a pro consciousness perspective, physical matter is created and influenced by multiple energetic layers including the mind. Duality has been a convenient construct by the allopathic tradition to simply focus on the physical thereby excluding the underlying cause manifesting as dis-ease.
Well, when I was 5, I had a huge wart on my knee. Whenever I fell on it, it would bleed. My great uncle told me he’d rub it off. Every day, he rubbed the wart a bit, very gently and told me it would go away. I remember seeing it get smaller every day. Did my uncle have special powers or was it my mind?
I have a couple other examples in my life, also, but i wont bore anyone.
I don't think true stories about people's lives are boring. 🙂
More than I already have! Lol
For years I had pain that simply began with a stretch before going walking - it didn't happen that day or for many days and months afterward. I was in constant pain. The hip doctor would say it was my back and the back doctor would say it was my hip. I (not the doctors) discovered it was my SI Joint. I then had an SI Joint fusion - the pain continued for months. I don't know how I find it but I found a book called "Back in Control" by a spine surgeon, David Hanscom. Then a book called "The Hidden Psychology of Pain" by Dr. James Alexander. Then "The Divided Mind" by Dr. Sarno. As was explained in these books, when in chronic pain for so long and then have surgery sometimes the pain continues even though the surgery was successful. I did the writing exercises and within a short time improved to being able to literally climb mountains.
Walking and hiking are what I love to do. They are not only good exercise, but they clear the mind. Unfortunately a chiropractor hurt me in January 2022 and now I am back in that situation I was in in 2014 where all I can do is what I must because of the pain.
I think I need to read these books again because. Thanks, Tess, for the reminder.
This concept has fascinated me for the longest time. Thanks for airing it.
With reference to your question in the title.........can you please answer this first...where is the mind located in the body? Thank you
Hi Tess,
I am a practicing family physician in Port Elizabeth, South Africa ( 31 years experience).
6 months ago I “discovered” the incredible power of low dose ketamine infusions to assist in effecting this transformation of “thinking” that you refer to.
I have treated severely depressed and anxious patients (most successfully with accompanying assisted psychotherapy , before during and after infusions).Their attending psychiatrists and psychologists are deeply impressed , but want to see more good results before becoming true believers (quite understandable).
I have seen amazing turnarounds in the health and wellbeing of fibromyalgia patients.
One lady particularly has recovered from 16 years of severe pain, fatigue, brain fog and depression after 6 moderate dose infusions .Over the years she was that “heart sink patient “ whose name on my appointment list would instantly chill my mood and crumple my posture: I felt so impotent about assisting her. She was taking all the usual “rheumatology specialist” advised meds with no discernible benefit. At 44 years of age her quality of life was worse than that of a 98 year old bed ridden frail care inmate 😩
We had to persist with the sessions but slowly, progressively and astonishingly she has made a full recovery.
I credit my “awakening” to the Covid debacle with its brutal and uncomfortable unmasking of the captured state of the medical profession. I have communicated to you before how I and many other colleagues became full on Ivermectin believers in Jan 21.
Following the FLCCC and yourself (including the tragic capitulation by Andrew Hill) I realized that powerful repurposed meds were being ignored: and that the most heinous culprits were arrogant academics who have a way of casting doubt on anything that meets their disapproval (for reasons that have nothing to do with safety, efficacy or “evidence”).
So now I have set up a ketamine infusion Clinic at my rooms. I still haven’t advertised as I am building experience and expertise cautiously. Very much like my experience with IVM, it was a case of “is this stuff really as good as they say?” Well, to say that I have been absolutely “blown away” is an understatement: like my nursing staff say , “it’s goose bump stuff”. Nowadays I actually look forward to seeing chronic pain (physical and psychological) sufferers because the turn around is just so gratifying to witness.
I am actively researching LDN (low dose naltrexone) now and plan to add that to my therapeutic armamentarium soon. Once again, it will be a case of , let me give it a go: it’s safe , so there is nothing to lose. Maybe another awakening awaits me.
Megadose vitamin D will come next.
For me the Covid debacle induced liberation from the mental capture that most doctor’s are under (and can’t even begin to recognize it) has been incredibly refreshing.
Many of my generation colleagues are worn out and retiring: whereas I feel I have just got going, I LOVE what I am discovering and this is why I did medicine.🌴👯♀️😎