Dear fraggle,
If I may add to plum's wise words, for me the most important realization about TMS was the assertion by Dr. Sarno that one does not have to eliminate stress from our lives or our anxieties. That it is a distraction mechanism and that there is nothing wrong with one's back, and therefore, even if one is anxious, one should move and work too regain their normal life-style. While anxiety and repressed emotions (especially accumulated from the past, not the ones in the now) are the cause, they work through an easy-to-break deception mechanism - if your concious mind asserts its rational superiority, the unconscious will give up.
So, work on fooling the deception: start ignoring your pain and moving despite it. Then you will become less and less anxious and break the vicious cycle. Explore the site - I am pain free today because of it!