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Why Dr. Sarno is right and why Dr. Hanscom and Dr. Schubiner are wrong.

BeWell said:
This is about pain, not the world. It begins with a psychologic phenomena and ends with a mental process. I do not consider valuable ideas that distract from the cause, unconscious emotions. When Dr. Howard Schubiner and Dr. David Hanscom talk about the body, in this case the brain, how pathways created by the brain are the cause of pain, they are not even talking about physiologic changes in muscle in the back for example, the ischemia that is the temporary, benign process that causes the pain.
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You're just assuming your conclusion that that's the mechanism. How do you know? Because Dr. Sarno said so is not an answer, that's circular reasoning.
 
Because I cannot improve on them, I conclude with the eloquent words of the moderator of the original TMS forum, someone who knows as much about this subject as anyone IMO.

"None of the details of Dr. Sarno's theory really matter. Much of it can be viewed metaphorically. Is there really a "pool of unconscious rage"? Is our brain really trying to "distract" us? Is the mechanism simply "oxygen deprivation"? Who knows.

Dr. Sarno's theory is something that makes sense to us, something we can relate to, something we can understand. But just as modern medicine is naive to assume that real physical symptoms cannot be caused by psychological factors, it would be naive to assume that Dr. Sarno has all the answers about the TMS process. Humans really have no clue about how the brain works. 99% of it remains a total mystery. The exact mechanisms behind TMS may be far beyond our comprehension.

The important thing is that we acquire the knowledge to accept that our symptoms are psychogenic, and then the courage to recondition the way we think about them and react to them. Everybody is different; what works for one may not work for someone else.
"
 
Let it go BeWell. You won't improve while being fixated on Schechter and his silly infomercial or Hanscom and his spine stories. You are TMSing by doing just that. You are currently using Sarno and the theory as a distraction. Patients focused on the theory don't heal. It really doesn't matter.
Nobody has all the answers. It is a psychosomatic syndrome. Psyche and Soma (= the body as distinct from the soul, mind, or psyche). Both are involved.
 
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I don't really see a contradiction here. Clearly, your emotional brain circuit generates pain and other symptoms in the physical circuit. Whether you resolve it by focusing on emotions or through other means, you are really working neuroplasticity - the ability of the brain to create new neural paths. So little is still understood by science about this - we should not add these doubts to the burden we already have, which is our own healing.
 
Isn't this a case of cause and effect? The cause being our minds response of physical pain to a stressor and the effect being the subsequent conditioning in the form of neural pain pathways. That's why therapy is a two pronged approach as in addressing the psychological issues and facing fear to overcome conditioned pain.
 
BeWell said:
Dr. Sarno does talk about conditioning. He said it sets in soon after TMS attack. The conditioning however are triggers. Memories must be neural pathways. Touching my nose with finger uses neural pathways. The triggers are neural pathways possibly, but are the neural pathways the banana republic dictator that says pull the trigger, time for pain? Creative thinking, unconscious emotional reaction thinking, that is decision making 101 that is always fresh, even though we are affected by memories.

I reject all structural explanations and don't care to know if a section of brain lights up in brain MRI. If a choice is guided by the past so it is not really a choice but a prediction, at least I believe the outcome is up to me and that is the heart of defeating TMS.
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I like the way you are thinking about this. It is mindful thinking that can have a huge impact on overcoming pain and conditioning.
 
pspa said:
But just as modern medicine is naive to assume that real physical symptoms cannot be caused by psychological factors, it would be naive to assume that Dr. Sarno has all the answers about the TMS process. Humans really have no clue about how the brain works. 99% of it remains a total mystery. The exact mechanisms behind TMS may be far beyond our comprehension.
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Dr. Sarno said exactly that in his books, that the mechanism of how TMS works is immaterial, the subconscious will come up with new symptoms to try to fool the conscious mind into thinking that the TMS symptom is real. Dr. Sarno said the mind is so complex we may never understand the workings of TMS. He says it doesn't matter, it's only necessary to understand TMS theory, that the symptoms are created by the subconscious as a psychosomatic defense mechanism distraction from facing emotional issues that the sub-c has decided for us are more painful to face head-on then the structural or affective TMS symptom. Dr. Sarno has never said he has all the answers, to the contrary, he says we may never know what the celestial architect, as he termed it had in mind.
 
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