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Summary: This book can change your life.
Review: I suffered from back problems since I was a teenager. I have had two back operations. John Sarno has changed my life and can change yours if you are open to a truly important idea about the mind-body connection. His latest book is an important step in the evolution of his discovery and in the techniques for treating sore backs and other symptoms of TMS. It takes work to recover from TMS but the book is the only tool you need.
Rating: 
Summary: Very compelling although repetitive
Review: I have spent an enormous amount of time and money on doctors, specialists, herbalists,and physical therapists who had no answers for me as to what was causing the pain and making me miserable. I am being treated for depression and anxiety due to my lack of mobility creating a horrible cycle of pain and hostility. I did need to go to a psychologist and with her help over the past eight months, I was able to read this book and make sense of all the anger I've carried for so long. I'm giving a copy to my mother so she can understand and maybe we can break the cycle that's gone on in our family for generations.
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Summary: Well written book, but overlooks one important issue.
Review:
Dr. Sarno's book is well written and convincing. He does, however, overlook an issue that is important to many pain sufferers, i.e., obesity.Not only is obesity important because it is psychologically induced in most cases, but it is also considered by many medical proctitioners to be a cause of back and joint pain. If a patient is very overweight, most doctors will explain his back, hip or foot pain as the effect of the extra weight. How valid is such an explanation? After all, there are many obese people who do not suffer form these symptoms. Dr. Sarno does not address this issue. Certainly, as long as the patient believes that his pain is caused by his weight, and as long as the overweight condition persists, Dr. Sarno's prescription will not be effective.
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Summary: A MUST For Chronic Pain Sufferers.
Review: I was diagnosed with FMS and after reading Dr. Sarno's "The Mindbody Prescription" I believe that my FMS is caused by TMS. I'm learning how to recognize tension and overcome it. Thank you so much, Dr. Sarno, for this very enlightening and helpful book.
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Summary: Sarno is closer to the truth than traditional medicine
Review: I first read Healing Back Pain when I was totally incapacitated by a herniated disk two years ago, so I was wonderfully surprised to see his new book. His method worked for me then...as well as for several others I've recommended the book to since. Sarno has wonderful ideas with roots in both Freudian theory and the emerging (or re-emerging) area of mindbody medicine (an interesting outgrowth of this era of managed care). He feels that unresolved emotional conflicts and the repression of the uncomfortable feelings resulting from the lack of resolution lead to spasms in the muscles which perpetuate pain. This idea provides hope...and a way out... for many who find themselves in chronic pain. The weaknesses in this book? Sarno is a fairly good writer, but not the best. And his interpretation of Freudian theory is a bit vague and poorly formed, but basically on the mark. I am pleased that I have another Sarno book to recommend to people (mostly clients in my psychology practice)...and I do know, unequivocally, that his method works.
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Summary: Blaming th victim! Pure crap!
Review: While I certainly agree that a negative attitude can impact an illness and that having a positive forward thinking attutide and not a self-defeating one is very important in treatment the idea that negative thouths or attitude can cause illnes is total bunk! I've been striken with 3 auto immune illnesses for 11 years now and I was happy and healthy before them- I didn't have any negative attitudes UNTIL I became ill and in constant daily unthinkable pain! Who is this author to talk about something that he has no first hand knowlage of!!!
While there is no lab lest for Fibro (or CFS) there is an elevated level of subsance P in the spinal fluid in Fibro patients, as well as several other scientif studies confirming it;s scientific existnace. It's not IN OUR HEADS!!!!
We fight enough battles for good research and good help from books we don't need to be discredited at every turn!
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Summary: The GREATEST MEDICAL BOOK EVER WRITTEN
Review: This book has been life-changing for me and many of my patients! Once one accepts that mind and body are inextricably connected, it follows that pain in the body can serve a psychological purpose. We all tend to use defense mechanisms to keep unpleasant emotions in the UNCONSCIOUS MIND. Dr. Sarno is the PIONEER in showing the impact of the UNCONSCIOUS MIND in everyday physical symptom production. This book should be REQUIRED READING for all medical students and physicians!! It will also be of tremendous benefit for chronic pain sufferers.
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Summary: Worked for ten years
Review: I was a very young boy of 14 the first time my back went out and it continued until I was left paralyzed on my bathroom floor the day of my brothers wedding.
I was flat on my back with no hope of ever being normal. And this was at 26 years old.
I stumbled onto Dr. Sarno;s book and my pain went away in two weeks. No kidding. I was a prisoner of my back for most of my YOUNG life and then after one reading the pain stopped.
And it lasted for ten years.
T two years ago I started feeling pain in my feet and then my back and then my hip. I have re-read the book and can't seem to shake the pain this time. I even stared psychotherapy to vent my unconscious rage. I am still in pain, but I know that it is caused by my unconscious stress and am really making an effort to follow the advice in the book. I have been in pain again for two years, but again, I know it is emotional. I am going to apply his principles religiously again and let you know how I feel in a few weeks.
Jimmy Dore
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Summary: This book had a huge and lasting impact on my life
Review: Hearing about Sarno's theory and getting a hold of this book was one of the most important things that's ever happened to me. All through college I had escalating health problems. I went to a zillion specialists and got diagnosed with lots of contradictory things, but nothing made much of a difference. I had foot pain (diagnosed as plantar faciitis) to the point where I couldn't walk or stand for more than a minute (that was fun), "carpal tunnel syndrome," so that I couldn't type or write for more than a minute, bad chronic heart burn, knee and elbow pain (I was diagosed with arthritis), irritable bowel syndrome, and yeast infections. It just didn't make sense, but things kept getting progressively worse. Then one day my boyfriend was researching carpal tunnel syndrome on the web, and he found out about The Mindbody Syndrome. I got the book, did a lot of hard mental work, and over the course of a month all of my health problems disappeared. I can remember forcing myself to walk and willing my foot pain to go away, and slowly IT DID. I walked a mile, which I hadn't done in a really long time, and I knew I had the power to make everything go away. It's been been a year and a half; I still get occasional heart burn when I'm especially stressed, but that's it. (Best of luck to everyone out there that may be in a similar boat. I recommend going to the message board at http://members3.boardhost.com/premierhealth/ if you have questions.)
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Summary: This is just what the doctor ordered
Review: I noticed most of the negative comments come from folks who don't have problems and have never had to face these situations. How do I know? Because I was one of them. An engineer by trade, I'm very left brained. But serious illness and the futility of conventional medicine in treating chronic conditions sends you searching. I also have researched much of the "science" out there coming from the drug companies. There's no money (patents) in mindbody medicine, so don't hold your breath for huge announcments from the medical establishment in this area. And if studies are done (of which there are many, by the way), the biased editors of the journals funded by the pharmaceutical industry will forthwith throw them out. Don't be too enamored by "impartial science". There is no such thing nowadays.
Dr. Sarno has hit the nail on the head in terms of understanding the source of many of our ailments. My wife has had aches and pains all over ever since we were married. She had a rough childhood and has a lot of emotional baggage. She has been 'diagnosed' with many structural issues as the source of her pain. However, by paying close attention to when the pain and other symptoms start, we have been able to recognize the emotional source of the pain and neutralize them using some emotional release techniques. An activity that has caused her back pain for a very long time no longer does. Every time she exercised, her knee would lock up. We identified the emotional reasons for this (fear of being in shape, losing weight, etc.), and the knee pain disappeared.
My only concern with Dr. Sarno's approach is that he doesn't outline an effective strategy to resolve the emotional issue, which is the real problem. Simply recognizing the pain comes from emotions does not solve the emotional problem. My concern is the mind will relocate the 'ailment' to some part of the body where you no longer recognize it as a mindbody reaction (skin, allergies, or something else). So I think his insight needs to be integrated with other effective strategies for actually resolving the emotional issues. There are options out there, such as Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), but again, for the left-brainers (like myself a few years ago), they won't buy it. That's fine. They can keep suffering!
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