Quotes from John E. Sarno

I do not have evidence that this "knowledge therapy" will work with any of the other common allergies, and so I will say nothing about them, except if I had one of them, I would certainly zero in on emotional factors in my life. Incidentally, acknowledging the role of emotions does not preclude the use of conventional medical treatment.

What we have yet to discover, and it is probably beyond our mental horizons to do so at this time, is how emotional phenomena can stimulate physiologic ones. That they do is unquestionable, but for the time being, we may have to be content with Benjamin Franklin's observation: "Nor is it of much Importance to us to know the Manner in which Nature executes her Laws: tis enough to know the Laws themselves.

Since that time, I have experienced a couple of other relapses, but the same type of knowledge therapy quickly defuses them, and the relapses are becoming progressively shorter in duration.

TMS patients cope only too well in reality; it is their unconscious minds that are cowardly. The best evidence of the validity of this concept is the fact that patients are able to stop the process simply by learning about it.

Incidentally, one should make a distinction, as Freud did a long time ago, between mental items that are not conscious but that can be brought to consciousness with effort, like the things in our memories—Freud called that mental domain the preconscious—and things in the unconscious that are unavailable and cannot be recalled. We simply don't know they are there.

It is appropriate to designate Freud as the grandfather of psychosomatic medicine since his genius introduced us to the world of the unconscious mind, a contribution to medical science of inestimable importance. Psychosomatic processes begin in the unconscious and, though it has yet to be widely appreciated by either physical or psychiatric medicine, unconscious emotions are a potent factor in virtually all physical ills.

It is likely that for most of us, the compulsive need to do well, succeed, and achieve is a reflection of deep-seated feelings of inferiority.

Louis C. Whiton in the August–September 1971 issue of Natural History magazine titled "Under the Power of the Gran Gadu" (Vol. 80, No. 7). Dr. Whiton had been conducting anthropological

Our brains have decided that feeling tense, which is the appropriate response to being tense, is too unpleasant to bear and is not as socially acceptable as having something "physically" wrong. And so the brain makes a few adjustments in circuitry and instead of looking and acting like a nervous wreck, presto—a bellyache or a backache

The Healer Within by Steven Locke, MD, and Douglas Colligan (New York: Dutton, 1986).

The study of psychoneuroimmunology is highly scientific and will play an important role in our understanding of many serious disorders, such as cancer and the autoimmune diseases (like rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes), but in my view it is but one segment of a larger study of how emotions may influence any of the organs and systems of the body. TMS

Studies and clinical experience of many years suggest that these common pain syndromes are the result of a physiologic alteration in certain muscles, nerves, tendons, and ligaments that is called the Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS). It is a harmless but potentially very painful disorder that is the result of specific, common emotional situations. It is the purpose of this book to describe TMS in detail.

these patients have little trouble recognizing that they are the kind of perfectionist, highly responsible people who generate a lot of subconscious anger and anxiety in response to the pressures of everyday life.

In his well-known book The Anatomy of an Illness, Norman Cousins described how he overcame one of these autoimmune disorders, ankylosing spondylitis (a form of rheumatoid arthritis), by recognizing that it was emotionally induced and introducing a kind of humor therapy plus vitamin C.

Love, Medicine, and Miracles by the Yale surgeon Bernie Siegel (New York: Harper & Row, 1986). Dr. Siegel began his career as a surgeon, became aware of the social and psychological dimensions of cancer, and began to work with patients accordingly. His book is highly inspirational and, because of its popularity, has introduced many people to the idea that the mind can be mobilized to combat cancer.

That concept was dealt a crippling blow by the seventeenth-century philosopher and mathematician René Descartes, who held that the mind and body were totally separate entities and should be studied separately.

often difficult for people to admit to themselves, is that there are great sources of anxiety and anger in their personal lives, like a bad marriage, trouble with children, having to care for an elderly parent.

Matters of the mind were the concern of religion and philosophy, according to Descartes. The body, he said, should be studied by objective, verifiable methods. To a large extent, Descartes's teaching remains the model for contemporary medical research and practice.

A knowledgeable physical therapist can slowly build up patients' confidence by reassuring them that there is no structural problem and reminding them of the physiologic reason for the pain.

It is perfectly acceptable to have a physical problem in our culture, but people tend to shy away from anything that has to do with the emotions.

There's nothing like a little physical pain to keep your mind off your emotional problems.

Acknowledging the important role of the emotions in health and illness, medicine must reexamine its concepts of disease causation.

Most of the structural changes in your spine are natural occurrences." "The brain doesn't want to face up to the repressed anger, so it is running away from it." "By laughing at or ignoring the pain, you are teaching the brain to send new messages to the muscles." "We're going to help you take the Sword of Damocles into your hands instead of having it hang over your head.

Patients often report pain in a new location as the old one gets better. It is as though the brain is unwilling to give up this convenient strategy for diverting attention away from the realm of the emotions.