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Credit to Dr. David Hanscom

BeWell said:
On National Public Radio, I listened to a segment that featured Dr. Hanscom and discussion of his book, 'Back In Control', which I promptly purchased.

I thought it would help me and who knows. I believed at the time his book was telling me my nerves had become hyper efficient at transmitting pain signals in a loop even though an injury may have healed.

Sound familiar? The old saw of structure!!! It's in the body and the nerves too. What is a poor soul to do!!

I stopped reading about halfway through. Too many details and the information did not resonate. Why? I have no idea.

My back pain kept coming back, sometimes it seemed as by suggestion by another....what if your back goes out? Bam! Prophesy fulfilled!

I don't like to quit. So I kept on looking for clues. I found this blog. A fun, intriguing read. http://www.hughhowey.com/how-i-cured-my-back-pain/ (How I Cured My Back Pain - The Wayfinder - Hugh C. Howey)

From there, I devoured testimonials of Doctor Sarno, bought 'Healing Back Pain', and I felt inside my brain a switch flip. This is the answer. Instinctively, I knew this is exactly what I was looking for. I am a healthy man and there is no physical reason to have the pain that crushed me to the ground.

I got rid of all the other books. They confuse the truth, which is the pain is a harmless and stupid symptom that is created by my brain. My herniated disc if it still exists, was nothing more than a gray hair of my spine, or akin to a wrinkle on my skin. Herniated discs heal. Not that it matters. They are normal abnormalities.

I give credit to Dr. Hanscom for initially piquing interest. Then I donated his book to a thrift. I am keeping all my Dr. Sarno books for they alone have the answer. It is all psychological.
Click to expand...

Interestingly, my story is your story in reverse. I came to Hascom via Sarno. Having spent years embracing pure TMS protocol (around five years), I was worse not better. So I did what any sensible person does, I took some time out to regroup. I discovered Hanscom (who at the time was gifting his book free to all and sundry), and the rest is a happy, healing history.
 
I think we are very fortunate to have so many self-help resources from different practitioners in the mindbody field. Thus, we can hopefully find at least one that resonates with us and that we can use as a guide to recovery. There are so many books out there and each is somewhat different. There are those written by practitioners who were students of Dr. Sarno (e.g. Dr. Schubiner) and those written by practitioners who developed their own healing strategies independent of Dr. Sarno (e.g Dr. Hanscom and Dr. Clarke).

I know that at times the fact that there are different perspectives, theories, and strategies related to mindbody healing is frustrating to TMSers. It can be part of our personality to want very definitive, exact, and consistent theories and strategies to guide us. However, since we are dealing with the complexity of the human mind there will never be just one way to heal and recover. It is up to us to sample different strategies and then stick to the one that resonates with us long enough to benefit from it.

My thanks to the generosity of all of those, practitioners and/or TMS sufferers, who are willing to share what they have learned with others either through writing a book, posting a blog, or sharing through this Forum. We have an abundance of riches!
 
BeWell said:
On National Public Radio, I listened to a segment that featured Dr. Hanscom and discussion of his book, 'Back In Control', which I promptly purchased.

I thought it would help me and who knows. I believed at the time his book was telling me my nerves had become hyper efficient at transmitting pain signals in a loop even though an injury may have healed.

Sound familiar? The old saw of structure!!! It's in the body and the nerves too. What is a poor soul to do!!

I stopped reading about halfway through. Too many details and the information did not resonate. Why? I have no idea.

My back pain kept coming back, sometimes it seemed as by suggestion by another....what if your back goes out? Bam! Prophesy fulfilled!

I don't like to quit. So I kept on looking for clues. I found this blog. A fun, intriguing read. http://www.hughhowey.com/how-i-cured-my-back-pain/ (How I Cured My Back Pain - The Wayfinder - Hugh C. Howey)

From there, I devoured testimonials of Doctor Sarno, bought 'Healing Back Pain', and I felt inside my brain a switch flip. This is the answer. Instinctively, I knew this is exactly what I was looking for. I am a healthy man and there is no physical reason to have the pain that crushed me to the ground.

I got rid of all the other books. They confuse the truth, which is the pain is a harmless and stupid symptom that is created by my brain. My herniated disc if it still exists, was nothing more than a gray hair of my spine, or akin to a wrinkle on my skin. Herniated discs heal. Not that it matters. They are normal abnormalities.

I give credit to Dr. Hanscom for initially piquing interest. Then I donated his book to a thrift. I am keeping all my Dr. Sarno books for they alone have the answer. It is all psychological.
Click to expand...

BeWell, I understand your anger about a book that you purchased that did not work for you, and you may want to warn others not to go down the wrong path.

Believe me, if I spent same amount of emotion on every book and CD that I purchased in the last 8 months that did not work for me, this forum would have 10 times more posts than it has now. I have a stack of at least 10 books and 5 CDs that were highly recommended here but did not do anything for me. Am I going to post several times a day about how little they did for the money and time I spent on them? Certainly not, I simply understand that people are different and whatever worked for some may not work for me. Interesting that some of those books and CDs made more sense at a later time, but only few really moved me on the path of healing.

The moral of the story is, as it has been advised by Ellen, to recognize that not everybody is identical to ourselves and respect various approaches and methods. As long as they help at least one other person, which Dr. Hansom obviously did!!!

BTW, persistent fascination with an idea is a TMS trait - you may want to think about it. ;)
 
Exactly. IMO people should offer encouragement based on their own experience, but should not assume their experience will be universal, or proselytize. Absolute dogma is rarely helpful to people struggling to find their way, and dogma battles never are (again in my opinion).
 
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