The Divided Mind: The Epidemic of Mindbody Disorders (ISBN 0061174300)

Genius:
Dr. Sarno's genius won't be unveiled until we (as a specie) get a grip on our emotions. For now, the world is as much divided as the mind. A tiny part understands, while the immense majority doesn't understand. Worst, that immense majority might not even be wired to understand. My dad suffers from his knee. He doesn't understand (and never will), so he keeps on suffering. It's easier for him to suffer (and get through surgery every 10 years) than to accept the fact that his knee is fine, and that the issue is buried in his mind. My boss (a VERY smart man, Ivy leaguer) suffers from his lower back. Doesn't understand. Still suffers. My best friend suffers from his ankle. Doesn't understand. Still suffers. My uncle suffers from his elbow (huge tennis player my uncle). Convinced by a "tennis elbow" diagnostic. Still suffers. My mom used to suffer from her neck. She understood, and doesn't suffer anymore. I have three herniated disks (C2/C3 - L4/L5 - L5/S1). L4/L5 was operated on 3 years ago, without success. Today I know. I won't suffer anymore. Ever. Thanks Doc. I'm grateful I've met you. I'm grateful I understood.

I'm Glad Now I Didn't Kill Myself:
I injured my back over 17 years ago and began the journey through the medical community that many other reviewers describe;chiropractic,acupuncture,surgery,steriod injections,etc. The absolute nadir must have been when I paid a "Rieke Master" (sp?)to hold her hands about six inches from me and ask,"Can you feel the heat from my hands?" No, of course I couldn't. I was so humiliated...you hear that when you hurt enough you'll try anything, but to find myself using a quack, that was embarrasing. The big thing about chronic pain is that eventually you realize what "chronic" means, which is forever,for the rest of your life.No intelligent person can face that without wondering whether or not a life like that is really worth living, and I considered suicide quite seriously.With my family history I was probably going to live at least another 25 years in agony,and I had to ask myself whether or not it was worth the trouble. Luckily, from the start I'd found doctors who prescribed narcotics for my pain. Had I not had those powerful painkillers I would certainly have killed myself. One doctor surgically installed a morphine pump that provided a small dose directly to the area that hurt. It worked very well, but as I developed a tolerance for the morphine I had to have the dose increased until finally the pump was turned as high as it would go. Eventually I had to take an early medical retirement from my job-now I would get 40% of my former salary and Social Security benefits, which don't amount to much. At least I could rest up. After a year I felt much better, except for the chronic pain.I still thought about shooting myself fairly often,but held it at bay with thoughts of the effect on my family. By chance one of my wife's doctors told her she should read this book. We bought it and out of curiosity I started reading it. I realilzed that a lot of the book pertained to me. A few days after I'd read it, my back didn't hurt anymore. The pain had almost disappeared. Since then I've tried to do things to make the pain come back. I've started exercising, I helped a relative move a rolltop desk from my house and into his truck (that worked! But only for a few days, and in a much milder form.) Now I've gotten a part time job that involves standing long periods, which used to cause literally agonizing pain. I've gotten sore, but that's about it. I've had the dose on my pump turned down three times in the last two months and I'll have it turned down again next time I see my doctor. My pain specialist is delighted and I'm feeling like I'm not a cripple anymore. There's a lesson here-had I gone through with my plans to kill myself,none of this would have been possible! If I continue to feel this good I'm going to try to get my old job back. Had I understood what Dr. Sarno was arguing in his book, that my pain was psychosomatic, I doubt that I would have read it. People who don't suffer from chronic pain ask, "what have you got to lose?" You can lose a lot. You lose hope.Once you've gone from one disappointment to another the fear of having another hope disappear into smoke makes it very difficult to commit to trying an new type of treatment. The sufferer has PLENTY to lose if this treatment fails like everything else has. How many blind alleys can you walk through? Thank God I did read the book. I wish the very best for Dr. Sarno and I think that people suffering from chronic back pain owe it to themselves to overcome their resistances and take a chance by reading this book. What's happened to me is little short of a miracle and the result has lasted well over two months, much farther than a placebo effect could have taken me. I'm glad now that I didn't kill myself.

THE Real Alternative:
Sarno's observations that many painful conditions are psychosomatically based (the pain is real, but the etiology involves repressive mechanisms operating in the unconscious) is a seminal insight that all western allopathic practitioners ignore to the detriment of their commitment to explore all efficacious treatments that might alleviate their patients' suffering. Purely somatically-based medicine - despite (and to a degree because) of explosive diagnostic technologies - has taken a seriously wrong turn in not focusing on the role of emotions and feelings as direct generators of pathologies. Sarno deserves credit, praise and encouragement in his lifelong attempt to reverse this narrow unproductive vision and restore the concept of holistic healing as the only truly salutary path to health and healing. Sarno has been ignored, undervalued and dismissed for far too long. He deserves a revered place in the pantheon of genuinely original and profound medical thinkers. His theoretical framework when strategically applied as a daily routine has helped me enormously, when - after a mountain of MRIs, EMGs, blood panels and surgical biopsies - drew a complete blank. Sarno's best book yet. Must reading for all chronic pain sufferers and mandatory reading for every physician who has watched conventional "structural" therapies repeatedly fail and who really cares about resolving his/her patients' agony by jettisoning their preconceptions, biases and limited training.

How Unconscious Emotions Can Create Physical Pain and Epidemics:
The book, "Divided Mind" is about the psychosomatic (mental) disorders that arise from interaction problems between a person's conscious and unconscious minds. The author John Sarna MD states that his goal is to "make clear that almost all common pain disorders that have afflicted millions through the years are psychosomatic". Psychosomatic problems are not illness - "they are a part of life, part of the human condition." An individual is not personally responsible for getting a psychosomatic problem but they are personally responsible for getting rid of it. This book has been based on pioneering research from six physicians who worked with John E. Sarna's theories which in turn are based on thousands of patient case studies. All of this work has been further reinforced by the studies of psychotherpists. As a mind- body doctor, John Sarna MD's job is to help a patient understand his problems then the patient can banish it from his/her self. He states that unconscious emotions cause diseases like acid reflux, ulcers, skin problems, allergies and much more. Plus they are a factor in auto-immune disorders as cancers and cardiovascular conditions. Given the wide range of problems caused by and related to unconscious emotions, the author believes that ignoring unconscious emotional problems in treating a person borders on being criminal. He explains this with numerous historical examples, syudies and case histories of patients who have manifested psychosomatic disease and how they were cureed. One of his claims is that "Textbooks state that fibromyalgia is of unknown cause and is not curable. I've cured patients with fibromyalgia". According to John Sarna MD the trends of the last half century is that doctors are only willing to resolves physical problems with physical solutions. Depression, for example, begins with an unconscious mental process that releases brain chemicals that lead to the physical sensations of depression. So to treat depression with chemicals (pills) but no psychotherapy is dangerous (a common modern practice). Because we can solve many problems and have had some amazing breakthroughs in the laboratory, doctors have become more focused on what can be known only in a lab (i.e. physical solutions) but humans are not just mechanical but are so interlocked with their mind, that rather than mind AND body - mind-body is a better term to describe how people work. In psycho somatic disorders " the brain induces actual physical changes in the body." On interesting fact that the book brought up is that hysterical disorders (nuttiness) and psychosomatic disorders tend to spread like a virus through a population "when the disorder is in vogue" That means that when a disease is in fashion many people develop symptoms for it! Example: In 1996 in Norway there was an unusual rise in incidents of `whiplash syndrome'. This is a condition where people would get neck and shoulder pain at the slightest bumper push. It was discovered by studying a country that had no cases of whiplash (Lithuania) that there were 3 main reasons that this epidemic existed in Norway. 1. Doctor's couldn't explain it 2. Medical insurance was easily available 3. Wiplash syndrome was in fashion These are exactly the conditions that exist for the large number of popular American diseases (ex. Acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome, tension and migraine headaches etc.) Most of these diseases are caused by a condition labeled TMS, which is a "mild, localized reduction in blood flow to a small region of a specific body structure, such as a spinal nerve, resulting in a state of mild oxygen deprivation." Thus any body part can be affected. One of the reasons its hard to start an epidemic once it's started is that many people in the diseased communities refuse to believe the disease is so simply solved. They refuse to believe it could be a mind-body problem probably because for someone in such a situation being told `its your mind' sounds like they are defective somehow - so they often are hostile about a suggestion. Their reaction is, "Maybe it is that way with others but not me, my disease is real". Why? Because a they worry that they may be nuts. And they have spent money and got emotional support for all the pain (which is real) that they have suffered making them feel silly. But they shouldn't as the disease they had is triggered by real reasons. What are those reasons? The old theory for physical pain without notable cause is that this pain resulted from a need for unconscious secondary gain (such as attention, sympathy etc.) but John Sarna MD believes that the pain is the result of primary reasons i.e. you feel pain in your body is to direct your attention away from unconscious anger, sorrow or rage. Example for CTS: People only develop carpel tunnel syndrome with the advent of computers. Yet people have been typing all day, 5 days a week, for decades before the arrival of computers and CTS. Many go through painful surgeries which do little to help as the problem is in blood flow not their hands. This is certainly a book that many in the medical profession will vehemently oppose (most without reading the book...ask your doctor). Since the book states the obvious based on observations and studies (i.e. it follows the scientific method) I do think that this book should be taken seriously and read by layman and doctor alike. P.S. By the way, John Sarna MD does say that stress is a major factor in psychosomatic problems and regular stress management will do a lot to alleviate the onset on physical diseases.

Dealing with the unconscious is not an easy task, but may be well worth it:
Dealing with unconscious causes of pain is not an easy task. Looking into one's emotions and doing the work of dealing with hidden rage and fear is also not easy. However, when one is looking at a lifetime of pain, culminating in death, one might want to consider the ratio of work to rewards. Even a little bit of work down this road pays off big. Once you get started, you will see this for yourself. For me, the payoff is not simply the relief of pain, although I can assure you from experience this does happen. It's dealing with all the doctors, feeling helpless do to anything about your own pain, waiting for test results to make sure you don't have something really serious, etc. It's all the anxiety around the pain that gets relieved in the process. Fear is an emotion, and anxiety comes from fear. Having a way to reduce fear and pain at the same time gives one hope and a feeling of control over your situation you might not normally have had you not discovered Dr. Sarno's work. Chapter four gives you the step-by-step instructions on how to begin dealing with the emotions that are causing you pain. You do not need to purchase his DVD lectures or pay to see him in person. If you can grasp these concepts as outlined in the book, and begin to do your own emotional work, there is a good chance you will see a change for the better in the way your body expresses these emotions as pain. If you need further help, it's probably not too hard to find a local therapist willing to help you explore causes of suppressed emotions. However, the idea that you can pick up this book and begin your own treatment right away is very exciting. Dealing with your own emotions buried in the unconscious is not an easy task, but a worthwhile one. You have nothing to lose but your pain, and everything to gain in the process, including rethinking the way you react to many of the situations in your life.