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Dr. Sarno has succeeded, but he shall not prevail.

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Ellen said:
I just love British words. I kept a list of them when I lived in England, but never ran across this one.
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A gem courtesy of my mum. I've no idea where she picked it up but she's from the North so maybe it's more popular up there. It always reminds me of the scene in Midnight Express where the American protagonist breaks mentally free from his incarceration by walking the other way around the stone. Another prisoner begins jabbering about 'the bad machine doesn't know it's a bad machine' or something like that. I'll let my fellow tms'ers draw their own conclusions :)
 
Surrender is indeed the essence for many us, be the surrender spiritual, erotic, both or otherwise. It rests at the heart for me. Inescapably.
 
Tennis Tom said:
Ezer, did you ever think that your pelvic pain may be due to having your head so far up your butt that you're cutting off the circulation to your mind?
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That is totally unacceptable Tennis Tom. If you think it is going to intimidate me, you are wrong.

Tennis Tom said:
For those who say Tolle, Watts, or Monte Hueftle , (who is 100 percent Sarno/TMS, last time I read his book), "healed" them, please come forth and quote the words, sentences, or paragraphs that resonated, turning your mind upside down, throwing away your crutches to jog down your new found path. The proof is in the pudding, show us the words that cured you!
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I thought Monte was new age nonsense? Now he is 100% Sarno. Listen Watts and Tolle managed to distill Buddhist concepts in ways that are easy to grasp. They teach how to deal with negative thoughts and emotions. How to feel and release your emotions. Those are very powerful concepts that work.

Monte explains his journey after a relapse here:
http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/Monte_Hueftle (Monte Hueftle)

I then read Tolle, Zukov, Myss, Chopra, Naparstek, Pert and Weil and had my next big "aha". All of these experts were saying the exact same thing in slightly different ways. It was my daily chronic thought patterns when I was in my Type A personality behaviors that were generating all of this inner stress and tension. These chronic thought patterns and behaviors were also the way that I was repressing feelings or emotional energy and these patterns were usually in the past or future and not present moment based.
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ezer said:
Watts and Tolle managed to distill Buddhist concepts in ways that are easy to grasp. They teach how to deal with negative thoughts and emotions. How to feel and release your emotions. Those are very powerful concepts that work.
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Excellent point! It is quite sad to realize that only now our Western civilization is rediscovering what has been a common knowledge in other cultures going back 2500 years. That common knowledge, resulting in a completely different relationship of a person with pain and emotions is exactly the reason why traditional cultures do not have such an epidemic of chronic pain. One does not have to go to Tolle and Watts to understand the Buddhist concepts. Buddhist teachings are widely available in the US in a more original form. One just needs to start looking.
 
Both sides have legitimate points. Sarno was trying to provide a medical and scientific interpretation of the data. People like Tolle,Watts, etc. are more similar to religious teachers. If people want to read outside of the TMS literature then that is their choice. It is probable that they will even be able to apply some of this extraneous knowledge to their recovery.

A lot of people here are Christian and their faith plays an important role in their recovery. I have never seen anybody here challenge the Christians on their faith and for them to do so would be inappropriate and would fall outside of the scope of this forum. People who read and believe such works as the Buddhist scriptures, the Bhagavad Gita, or the works of Eckhart Tolle, etc. will probably have a similar experience to the Christians in that their faith and spiritual experiences will play a role in their recovery.

There are Buddhists and Hindus who know and believe that back pain and headaches are caused by emotions. In Laos PDR, many ordinary people will tell you that headaches and backpain are caused by a 'hot heart' What these Buddhists and Hindus lacked was a system to enable others to understand what they know in their skin to be true.

I read many of these gurus and still had horrible pain. Their words meant little to me because they hadn't formulated a system for me to understand what the mind-body is doing.
 
MrRage said:
Both sides have legitimate points. Sarno was trying to provide a medical and scientific interpretation of the data. People like Tolle,Watts, etc. are more similar to religious teachers. If people want to read outside of the TMS literature then that is their choice. It is probable that they will even be able to apply some of this extraneous knowledge to their recovery.

A lot of people here are Christian and their faith plays an important role in their recovery. I have never seen anybody here challenge the Christians on their faith and for them to do so would be inappropriate and would fall outside of the scope of this forum. People who read and believe such works as the Buddhist scriptures, the Bhagavad Gita, or the works of Eckhart Tolle, etc. will probably have a similar experience to the Christians in that their faith and spiritual experiences will play a role in their recovery.

There are Buddhists and Hindus who know and believe that back pain and headaches are caused by emotions. In Laos PDR, many ordinary people will tell you that headaches and backpain are caused by a 'hot heart' What these Buddhists and Hindus lacked was a system to enable others to understand what they know in their skin to be true.

I read many of these gurus and still had horrible pain. Their words meant little to me because they hadn't formulated a system for me to understand what the mind-body is doing.
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Agreed. There is a big part of the Christian tradition that has been recently frowned upon, which is healing by laying hands or through prayer. I was dead skeptical about it until I learned and understood the mechanics behind chronic pain and TMS.

It now makes perfect sense to me how healing emotional pain clears physical pain and even severe movement disorders like paralysis, seizures and tremors. Myself being beset by severe spasms in muscles and tendons of arms and hands, I am recovering through the process that I would have dismissed as old wives talk a year ago.

Ironically, it is Sarno and other doctors and scientists who led me to the deep respect of shamans, Christian saints and Tibetan monks for their healing work. In my case, reading Sarno's book was not enough, I had to dig deeper into my mindbody connection, and it was the Buddhist teachings that closed the loop.

Sarno said that we don't have to change who we are in order to heal, and whatever spiritual, religious or scientific approach proves to work for people, it should be legitimized on this site, as long as it recognizes the impact of the emotions and subconscious mind on the physical body.
 
MrRage said:
I read many of these gurus and still had horrible pain. Their words meant little to me because they hadn't formulated a system for me to understand what the mind-body is doing.
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You need to go beyond reading, you need to practice. If you read "Practicing the power of NOW" by Tolle for example, it is very practical but you have to do your homework. Otherwise nothing will happen. Or practice what Monte, Abigail, Lorraine and the many coaches teach. Everyone has a slightly different angle.

For me, religion did not enter the equation. My healing was only a matter of feeling buried as well as present day to day emotions and controlling the flow of negative thoughts.

Sarno is very important but he is not the beginning or the end of the story. Sarno was influenced by a now forgotten psychotherapist and Freud disciple, Franz Alexander-Gabor that wrote the seminal Psychosomatic Medicine: Its Principles and Applications (1950).
 
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BeWell said:
The idea of "change the nerve pathways" is reminiscent of the physical therapy model in that lack of physical exercise did not cause symptoms nor do nerve pathways, and by focusing on changing nerve pathways the attention is not hitting the target of what is actually causing the symptoms; the mind deciding to cause a symptom of distraction in misunderstanding it's place in existence.
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BeWell, I hate to see you latch on irrelevant details. Maybe Sarno is wrong and Schubiner is right. Maybe Sarno is right and Schubiner is wrong. Or they are both wrong (likely). I personally like Dr. Candace Pert's theory of poly-neuropeptides but I am not fixated on it. As long as you focus on irrelevant details you won't progress.

Your brain is using you to keep TMS alive. Use your brain to heal instead.

Sarno said: Mindbody syndromes are caused by repressed emotions.
That is the whole theory, the rest is just commentary (to paraphrase Rabbi Hillel).
 
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BeWell said:
I feel it is important to look at any and all possible flaws or discrepancies to sharpen awareness of psychosomatic causation, therapy, and how to bring this model of healing to people.
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One could get wrapped up in looking at all possible flaws between Dr Sarno, Dr Schubiner etc, however that's TMS'ing.

Most people who heal and heal quickly don't over think the material or make it more complex than it is, or read a countless number of books to try and find the answer. I feel trying to understand all of the differences adds very little, or no value in healing. In fact I think it can be counter productive and adds stress to an already trying time for some.

I can understand the rationale in debunking certain modalities which have no scientific grounding and educating people between good and bad medicine. However, I feel trying to debunk Dr Schubiner, or writing post such as 'Dr Sarno is right and Dr Schubiner and Dr Hanscom are wrong', adds very little value. Especially since, nobody has all of the answers. Wisdom can be found in each of their teachings. Much like the information on this forum, we need to decipher what's useful, not over analyse, but to learn to apply to ones own journey.

That said, even Dr Sarnos work was evolving as his understanding in the realms of mind-body expanded. This is evident in the various books he has had published and who knows perhaps his thoughts may have veered towards Dr Schubiners model. I would therefore keep an open mind when reading text as it's not as clear cut or black or white. There are many paths that to reach wellbeing. It's not important how we get there, but more important that we get there.

Have a wonderful evening

P.S I take it you've healed using Dr Sarno technique? I'd be really interested in reading your success story if you'd be so kind as to post one.
 
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Tennis Tom said:
Could you try to be more patronizing please!
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No Tennis Tom. It is a Buddhist concept that has been described by Eckhart Tolle. You are not your brain. The never ending chatter and thoughts in your brain are not YOU.

I found Eckhart's quote on the subject:

“The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately, it is not so much that you use your mind wrongly—you usually don't use it at all. IT USES YOU. ”
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BeWell knows his Sarno very well. Ezer, maybe you took a wrong turn somewhere, this is the TMS Wiki, not the Eckhart Tolle Forum, although I really like the guy. Candace Pert rocks too, and is mentioned in the Good Doctor's books, polyneuropeptides are electro-chemical transmitters, but they don't cause TMS, they are the messengers of it.
 
Tennis Tom said:
BeWell knows his Sarno very well. Ezer, maybe you took a wrong turn somewhere, this is the TMS Wiki, not the Eckhart Tolle Forum, although I really like the guy. Candace Pert rocks too, and is mentioned in the Good Doctor's books, polyneuropeptides are electro-chemical transmitters, but they don't cause TMS, they are the messengers of it.
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Tennis Tom, I practiced what you preach post after post for 2 years. Reading Sarno. Watching his videos. Knowledge penicillin and all that. Then I went to see a so called TMS doctor. Then seeing a TMS psychotherapist for almost a year.

Result: I was still in suicidal pain.

I managed to heal by expanding beyond the strict orthodoxy that you promote.

Ezer, maybe you took a wrong turn somewhere
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What wrong turn? I healed. Should my experience be dismissed?
 
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