As a father, spouse, HR professional, musician, and golfer, I feel unfulfilled because I hide from my failures, rather than learn from them. TMS adds to it…confirmation that I am broken, and less than.
To add to what TG957 wrote, the phrases “my failures” and being “less than” stood out to me, too. They called to mind what Dr. Sarno said about perfectionism and goodism and made me wonder if those phrases are a product of perfectionism run amok. That is what I am going to talk about.
A year after Sarno retired, he provided a short Foreword to a book written by two psychologists who worked in his clinic, namely, Frances Sommer Anderson & Eric Sherman, Pathways to Pain Relief (2013). As far as I know, that piece is the last thing he published. Given the need for a foreword to be brief (since it is intended merely to introduce the book), I think Sarno undertook to distill his views on TMS to what he regarded as the core essentials. He said nothing in the Foreword that is brand new, but I think his decision about what to emphasize is noteworthy.
He focused on the unconscious reservoir of rage. He said childhood is the first contributor to that, and “in fact, the influence of childhood emotional experiences is probably responsible for the majority of the rage . . . .” He quickly passed over egregious physical, sexual, and emotional abuse (the main things that raise a person's ACEs test score) and wrote: “I have found, however, that what might be called subtle emotional abuse is virtually universal in previous generations. It was my personal experience. Instead of unconditional love and total acceptance, we learned to conduct ourselves within behavioral parameters set forth by our parents, either explicitly or by implication. Examples: One must be good all the time; anger is not allowed, one must please mommy and daddy; children should be seen and not heard; you’d better be good or I will tell your father; the constant threat of punishment.”
Sarno then explained that after perhaps some teenage rebellion, “we become compliant adults, who need to prove ourselves all the time by performing perfectly and by being ‘very good people.’ I have dubbed these tendencies ‘the perfect and the good.’ They are universal in the people I have worked with over the years. Without realizing it, we live our lives conforming to what we think is expected of us. This has very little to do with achievements, success in careers, and the like, but has everything to do with our personal lives and how we feel as we go through life.”
Sarno said further contributions to the unconscious reservoir of rage accumulate “throughout life
due to the pressures we put on ourselves to be perfect and good.” He wrote that since the stressful things that happen as we go through life “are the only pressures we are aware of, it is natural to conclude that they are the sole reason for the imposition of physical symptoms when, in fact, they are only the last straw (more appropriately, the last brick).” In a 2011 interview, Sarno said that in an effort to be perfect or good, “something in the unconscious--an inner child--is made very very angry.
I think that’s probably the major dynamic I deal with.” (I added all the bolding.)
Finally, in The Mindbody Description, Sarno included a short discussion under the heading What You Don’t Need to Do to Get Better. He wrote that what is in the reservoir of rage “is repressed, we do not feel it and, therefore, we cannot deal with it. Nor is it possible for us to change our personalities and stop trying to be perfect and good.” So what can we do? “If we are aware that we possess these traits we can modify our behavior and lessen whatever negative effects they have on us . . . ."
