No pain but all the personality traits

Oh, and I am fat so I hope no one takes offense about my comments on that.

 

Anne you said many good things here. Hard to respond to all your statements. I'll try to answer a few things, hopefully it will clear some things up for some folks.

I've only seen what I've seen, so that's my world, and that comes from my own experience, from deep research, and from talking to TMS practitioners for 12 years. I've only heard about one TMS practitioner who didn't have TMS, Bob Bevan, PhD. All the others have had it that I know of, many seriously, but there could be others I'm not aware of. I personally wouldn't see anyone that didn't have TMS. The Sufi poet wrote, "There are 3 ways to know fire. The first is to hear about it, the second is to see it, and the third is to be burned by it." I was burned, then I went back and saw it. How can a practitioner truly understand TMS without being burned?

You said, "I am quite sure they see it as just part of who I am and they gave up long ago truly trying to cure me, but they like me.." That is common, I was you once, too. They felt bad for me and they liked me. You will break your chains someday. Dr. Sopher and I talked about this concept. He then told me that the TMS patients that the TMS docs were seeing were the ones that their regular doctors had given up on. Their physicians cringed when they saw these trouble healers on their daily charts. But the TMS docs see the larger picture.

My bet, and you're a betting woman, is that when you heal (and you will heal), your doctor will not apply TMS in his practice for various reasons. You mentioned one of them here....time. Years ago they spent more time, with today's healthcare they will have less time because they will soon be getting reimbursed less. I lost my health insurance recently for the first time in my life. It takes a lot more time with a patient to be a TMS practitioner, so things are going to change. But that will have to be worked out in another lifetime, not mine.

When you said your doctor had surgery and healed, there's two things possibly happening there. The first is, that he never had TMS, and so his surgery worked, but I highly doubt it. Chances are that he was fooled by his brain by the powerful placebo. There's a great example of something I went through but I'm too tired to type it out now..lol. I would bet the family farm that he never needed surgery for all the reasons I wrote about; the main one being that his surgery removed him from all his tension for a while, family, patients, etc...and he heals, but not by the means that he thinks he has healed.

I agree with you, Dr. Sarno is a pioneer, and it will take a long time to accept and integrate his ideas. And--as I said earlier here, there are many roads to get there, or flagships to tie your flag to. But--there's a huge caveat, Dr. Sarno found the magic bullet, the unfelt emotions. No matter which path you choose, the Monte route or the Hannibal Schechter route, some will heal, and others will not: because it's all about belief. It is belief in the method that heals, for all the reasons I outlined in my work. Carl Jung said the same thing a hundred years ago.

I can't say anything about Monte's work other than from the little I've seen. He doesn't understand TMS as Dr. Sarno has defined it. He's come up with a way that he thinks works, and if people believe in him, then it will help them, "right or wrong." But it's only your belief in what he's doing that alters your current state. Marc 11 vs 23-24. He's told people that have relayed to me, that Dr. Sarno is the old way, 40 years outdated. But Dr. Sarno's last book came out in 2007, it's still new and it still works every day. I see it working for those who understand it deeply and do the hard work. So Monte has come up with a great marketing plan spring-boarding off of Dr. Sarno's work. When I googled him earlier it came up, "The new-Sarno program." I can tell you that Dr. Sarno does not like that people use his name, and especially to say that he's out-dated and wrong.

So, if his work helps you, or anyone, then that's great. But he doesn't understand Dr. Sarno's work well, and appears to contradict it in the pieces I've read, eg, personality type, repressed emotions, etc.

I spend too much time defending what I know to be true, but it's good to get it out so that others can make their own decisions. What some people do, may work, and I'm glad for them, but be aware of "why" something works for you. Were you desperate at the time and needed something, or someone to listen? Did you need a formal structure to follow because you were in pain and emotionally lost at the time? Did you buy into something that is baseless because it provided a need? And what are the motivations of the people selling things?

You're also correct, the industry need not worry about people healing, as long as there are family problems there will be health problems. As long as ego is controlling our lives there will be physiological responses to words.

Fear is the driver and shame is its passenger.

Steve
Art: "The little lights aren't twinkling Clark."
Clark: "I know Art, and thanks for pointing it out."

 

What? Fat? Why would you say that?

You're beautiful.

 

Great discussion.

Im my experience I live in a small mountain village and the doctor is a very caring person. She takes time to visit and know the patient on a personal level. She helped me get tests etc to find or rule out causes of my symptoms, but I've never asked her an opinion on mind/body treatments.

I don't think that the majority of health care professionals don't want people to heal, but their training is to only treat a symptom and relating to the point Anne brought up most are so busy they only can give you a few minutes of time and of course no follow up or personal involvement unless I keep booking appt after appt with them.

Expecting the system to change in any noticeable way in the near future probably won't happen, unless the mind body treatments are covered in the medical training that these professionals spent many years and much money to get!

On another note the treatments of TMS don't all line up in a neat row. With all the different labels mentioned in Steve's other recent posts, and all the different suggestions you can find here, it can be very confusing.

In recovery community we are told" keep it simple." When I saw the Sarno video posted, it really helped me to hear the outline of his views, and a very simple treatment. I had the biggest recent reduction in symptoms after watching that.

Then of course I read Steve's post where he views the video as looking like an infomercial! (We all see things through our own pair of glasses.) With all the differing labels and treatments, it would be hard to present mind/body theory to a doctor where it all seems to make complete sense, IMHO.

There are several examples I could site where what Dr Sarno suggested as a method of treatment has now been expanded on, and maybe veers in a different direction. May be that's not all bad, since there is usually more than one way to accomplish something.

At any rate, at this point I guess I just need to take what works and leave the rest, realizing that this is a personal journey and others will probably heal in a different way than me.

 

The exchange of thoughts from you two is fabulous. I see a lot of mutual agreement. The medical profession should have
found a cure for cancer many years ago, but that would cut off the research money. It makes me very skeptical about research doctors. And most commercials on tv are for drugs to make the pharmaceutical companies even richer. I laugh at the disclaimers, warning that use may cause everything from rashes to death. Why would anyone risk taking any of it?
I'm a strong TMS believer and doing all I can to spread the good news of the good doctor Sarno.

 

Some of my best friends are fat and beautiful people.

 

I just want to add that there is a major initiative to integrate primary health care and mental health services. Thus, primary care docs, who will never have enough time to address TMS adequately with their patients, can refer them to the mental health practitioner down the hall. I believe Dr. Sarno used this model. And health insurance is required to cover mental health services now.

 

Maybe someone ought to make a movie about someone who tried everything the doctors recommended but didn't heal
untill they tried TMS. I doubt any studio would produce it. Maybe it could be done as an independent documentary.
If I didn't have so much on my plate now, I'd try it.

 

My point is that they're set up to treat, not heal. The vast majority of the time people contact me and their docs have told them, "you'll have to live with this thing, there's no way to heal (eg, fibro)." Then they do the TMS work and they heal. So healing isn't often in their lexicon. They are treaters, but not so much with the trick part.

Dr. Sarno knew that his discoveries would be expanded upon, and that's how it should be. There are many paths home. I said in GPD that I've never seen two people heal in the same manner. But the core of Dr. Sarno's work will never change:
1 Our bodies are ok
2 It's emotionally driven
3 Focusing on healing through treating the body will keep the sufferer in pain....etc.

How you get there is a personal journey like MSunn said here.

Many of us never had a problem with the Sarno video in that it did provide a nice overview, or re-encapsulation. But it was how it looked with the set-up phony audience questions, etc. It was the look of it, never the content. I don't know if you read GPD or not but I said on page 271, "I had my light bulb moment when I bought a videotape by Dr. Sarno where he emphasized, “the rage that is causing your pain, you will never feel." That was the video you're talking about here.

It was a good video, but many of us were cautious that his message was so good that the way it was produced might backfire. It did not backfire, it simply disappeared for years.

So all is good. People continue to heal just about every day. The messages are fun to read, and once again, they're all healing in different ways. But the core message remains and it is not outdated, as some would explicitly state.

Steve

 

Steve, I agree about the phony audience and their questions in the Sarno video.
That distracted from the messages he was sending.
The director of the video should have stopped it.
It was so obvious, right after Sarno made a point about anything,
one of those in the audience asked a question as if they had been deaf to what he said.

Still, even as an infomercial, the video is really great.

Is this video the same as the one in which you said Sarno does a CD or DVD about Healing Back Pain?
You said it was more helpful than even reading the book.

 

Walt I think I was talking about the audio of Healing Back Pain. It was better for me than the book. There wasn't any videos that helped me much, other than the one statement he made in this video.

 

Thanks Steve for re-stating those 3 points. That keeps it simple for me.

I'm a perfectionistic musician so I can see the valid criticisms of the video.

I thought the questions were rehearsed but that these were really patients of Dr Sarno. If not, I know film critic wasn't my calling in life

I also might be up for buying some swamp land in Florida!

 

Hey, I'm a guitar player too. What kind do you have? What type of music? I have a Taylor and 2 Breedloves. I just finished writing a new song, gotta send it in for copyright soon as I lay down a scratch track.

I also have some swamp land in Florida. How much money you got?

SO

 

Hi Steve

Being a professional musician all my life I'm sure you can guess at the fortune I've amassed

I also have a Taylor, I play my solo guitar gig on a Takamine nylon string.

Jazz is my favorite, but I've played a wide variety of styles. I also own several electrics and in general way too much gear!

It would be my pleasure to send you one of my CD's if you have any interest.

I really got a lot out of your book.

Take Care

 

What?! The audience questions in the Sarno video were phony?! I thought they were just particularly dense, possibly hard of hearing, people.