Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection
Selected Book Details
- Paperback
- Author: John E. Sarno
- Publisher: Warner Books
- Release Date: February 1991
- ISBN-10: 0446392308
- ISBN-13: 9780446392303
- List Price: $13.99
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Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon
SummaryHealing Back Pain promises permanent elimination of back pain without drugs, surgery, or exercise. It should have been titled Understanding TMS Pain, because it discusses one particular cause of back pain--Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS)--and isn't really a program for self-treatment, with only five pages of action plan (and many more pages telling why conventional methods don't work). According to John E. Sarno, M.D., TMS is the major cause of pain in the back, neck, shoulders, buttocks, and limbs--and it is caused not by structural abnormalities but by the mind's effort to repress emotions. He's not saying that your pain is all in your head; rather, he's saying that the battle going on in your mind results in a real physical disorder that may affect muscles, nerves, tendons, or ligaments. An injury may have triggered the disorder, but is not the cause of the amount or intensity of the resulting pain. According to Sarno, the mind tricks you into not facing repressed emotion by making you focus on pain in the body. When this realization sinks in ("and it must sink in, for mere intellectual appreciation of the process is not enough"), the trick doesn't work any more, and there's no need for the pain. (Healing Back Pain should not be used for self-diagnosis. Always consult a physician for chronic or acute back pain.) --Joan Price |
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
The Bible For Back Pain Sufferers
Rating:
I first read this book in 1996 and continue to believe that it is the most important tool anyone with back pain can use.
Rather than directly reviewing the book, here is an email I just sent to Dr. Sarno to thank him for his work.
I know you must get thousands of emails thanking you Dr. Sarno but I had to join the chorus.I`ll keep this brief.
I am a 53 year old male who grew up in a family of chronic back pain sufferers.
I watched my father be tortured over 35 years of having to go to work in a physical job while losing sleep fearing his back might "go out" on the job the next day.
As that was all I knew I fell into the same issues by the time I was in my 20s.
I went through all the traditional treatments with no success until back in 1995 or 96` I read your book "Healing Back Pain."
I read it once, I read it twice I read it a third time and I kept it by my bed almost as my bible.
I have had absolutely no recurrence of any major back issues right up until 4 days ago (not surprisingly right after I lost my cat, was going for a medical procedure this week and was worrying about financial matters.)
I quickly got out the book, kept up my exercise schedule and within a few days I am back to normal and not fearing any back issues at all !
All I can say is thank you thank you thank you. I only wish I could convince my friends (who I hear complaining that their back went out) to read your book and let it sink in.
PS, my brother is a physician and as of this year he finally got on board with your program. He too was a chronic back pain sufferer and so far is now a believer in your theories about the mind-body connection which is not an easy thing for some in the medical profession.
Thank you Dr. Sarno
The Mind-Body Connection
Rating:
I first heard of Dr. John Sarno in Dr. Andrew Weil's book "Spontaneous Healing : How to Discover and Embrace Your Body's Natural Ability to Maintain and Heal Itself. I believed I had "slipped a disk" while back-packing in Australia. While I was scuba-diving the Great Barrier Reef (and doing my best to pretend I was not in crippling pain) the pain deepened into sciatica. I could barely walk. Wherever I was, at the airport, on the boardwalk, I had to lay on the ground and curl up into a ball in order to walk another few minutes. In New Zealand, as I was hitchhiking from Christchurch to Auckland on big-rig trucks, a physical therapist gave me some exercises he said I'd have to do for the rest of my life. After a year or so of helping, the exercises stopped working. I was so afraid I'd have to have back surgery and/or be crippled for the rest of my life. When I read about Dr. Sarno's deconstructing the emotional and stress-related mind-body connection in the majority of back pain syndromes, I started to mentally investigate my own back spasms. What was I thinking about when the back pain started? I started to see my own pattern of worry - that I had been attributing to my sitting position in the car, or my shoes for instance to my stresses and deepest fears. As I read more of Dr. Sarno's carefully detailed investigation into Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS), my back pain gradually subsided as I learned the mechanisms of TMS, and deconstructed my own experience of back pain. A year later, I rarely experience back pain, and when I do it's very minor and just a sign that I need to relax and take care of myself. I can even wear high-heeled shoes and go back-packing again (not at the same time), and all manner of bending over and sitting positions are no problem. I've even taken up hula-hooping! One should certainly investigate TMS before considering back surgery. TMS may not be a diagnosis accepted by the entire medical community, nonetheless, Dr Sarno's approach *WORKS* and it could work for you. It's as easy as reading a book, critically deconstructing your own experience, and changing the way you deal with stress. I'll add that reading a book is inexpensive and harmless. Spinal surgery is not. This is even my 2nd copy of this book, because I purchased a copy for someone I cared about who had back pain. I recommend this book to *everyone!!!* Best wishes... :) MT
The Best Treatment Formula
Rating:
I am a professor at a medical school. I have suffered from chronic lower back pain since my 20's. This book was the best "treatment" I have ever tried. But, it helps to read it more than once. Remember that most of us do not grasp all of the important ideas with just one reading. Also, I highly recommend Dr. Sarno's other books.
Not buying the hype...
Rating: 
Give me a break! Gentle exercise, massage and learning proper biomechanics is working. Believing there are emotions I am not addressing just doesn't make sense to me. I don't hold anger in. Either I journal, meditate, or read somebody the riot act when I am angry! I don't give it a chance to do me harm. As far as I'm concerned, I can't see how unacknowledged anger in my life is causing me back pain. I seem to be one of those who don't fit the profile of the fuming, seething individual who has emotional turmoil and indeed has lost touch with his/her emotions. For that readership, I guess they give the book five stars.
Save your money and go buy a nice journal instead. Do you a world of good.
This book is the answer i've been looking for!
Rating:
2 weeks I've waited for this book.
1 week it took me to read it.
7 yaers of agony and pain ended last week after reading this book.
I can't believe it!
Pain that has been my evel companion and dictated every aspect of my life - gone!!!
Sometimes I feel the pain trying to come back, sneak on me, but now I know why it's there and I can make it disappear again after 5 minutes or so.
This is unreal. Its almost ridiculous.
I am 33 years old, and for the first time in 7 years - I fill young, and free.
This book is worth more then 7000$ - the amount I payed on painkillers and alternative medicine so far, and no doubt - would have kept on paying for many years to come.
If you ever had back or neck pain that crippled you, while doctors telling you that you have a herniated disc but can't explain why it hurts so much, or why you are in pain most of the time, even while sitting down - Well, this is the book for you.
You don't need to be in pain.
You don't need to be depressed anymore.
Just read this book and be open to what it has to say to you, think about it, really think.
I did and it changed my life, and I recommand this book to anyone who suffers from back & neck pain, and forever greatfull to John E. Sarno for giving me my life back <3.
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