Sarno wrote in The Divided Mind that he found it was necessary to refer about 20 percent of the patients he accepted into his program for psychotherapy. This was not just any psychotherapy but rather was ISTDP, a method developed by psychiatrist Dr. Habib Davanloo at McGill University in Montreal. Sarno was no advocate of cognitive behavioral therapy or other "supportive" therapies. He wrote in The Divided Mind: "It is clear that the therapist must be dynamically (analytically) trained to recognize and work with these problems . . . ." Dr. Arlene Feinblatt, who was Sarno's chief psychologist, reportedly learned ISTDP from Davanloo himself and taught the method to other psychologists Sarno used. A hallmark of ISTDP is that patients usually find the therapy more stressful than supportive, at least initially. In a segment of The Divided Mind that Feinblatt wrote, she said: "The pressure from the interviewing psychologist and the degree of toleration of the patient to the stress of the process serve to identify the patient's strengths and weaknesses. . . . The degree to which the patient tolerates these challenges and the patient's responses to them will indicate the ego strength, and ability of the patient to make use of further [ISTDP] therapy."
There are very few therapists in the United States who have done the rigorous ISTDP training needed for proficiency. There happens to be an eminent one in Belmont, MA, namely, Nat Kuhn, M.D. Kuhn said in responding to a negative review of Schubiner's Unlearn Your Pain book, "it is easy to do ISTDP poorly, and not so easy to do it really well." I am aware of Kuhn only through a reference manual on ISTDP he wrote for therapists, and based on that I am sure he does ISTDP really well. Also, Kuhn says Schubiner has referred patients to him. I expect Kuhn is expensive, but given your apparent desperation, you might consider scheduling an appointment with him. The initial appointment typically goes two or three hours, which gives both patient and doctor a good basis to evaluate whether to proceed further. I will add one more thing, though, that Kuhn said in his response to the negative review of Schubiner's book: "Symptom relief in ISTDP can be very rapid, though for various reasons musculoskeletal pain can be less rapid than other somatic symptom disorders like migraines, IBS, nonepileptic seizures, etc."
To avoid misunderstanding, I should also say I am not a psychotherapist. I am just a former longtime sufferer from various forms of TMS who ultimately consulted a physician who had trained with Sarno (not one of the few who are well known to have done that). I soon figured out, to my surprise, that he was more into ISTDP than into what Sarno did in his office, and that stimulated me to read the technical literature on it.
