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Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection | 
| Author: John E. Sarno
Publisher: Warner Books
Category: Book
List Price: $13.99
Buy Used: $3.34
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Avg. Customer Rating:  346 reviews
Sales Rank: 1068
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 0446392308
Dewey Decimal Number: 617.564
EAN: 9780446392303
ASIN: 0446392308
Publication Date: February 1, 1991
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Good reading copy. May include highlighting/writing, some completed exercises, missing dust cover, crease, and/or overall wear. Ships within 2 business days. 100% Customer satisfaction guaranteed.
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Amazon.com
Healing 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
Product Description
Healing 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
Download Description
Dr. John E. Sarno, author of the revolutionary book Mind Over Back Pain, is a medical pioneer whose program has helped thousands of patients overcome their back conditions--without drugs or dangerous surgery. Now, using his latest research into TMS (Tension Myositis Syndrome), Dr. Sarno goes one step further: after identifying stress and other psychological factors in back pain, he demonstrates how many of his patients have then gone on to heal themselves without exercise or other physical therapy. Find out: Why self motivated and successful people are prone to TMS How anxiety and repressed anger trigger muscle spasms How people "train themselves" to experience back pain How you may get relief from back pain How you may get relief from back pain within two to six weeks by recognizing TMS and its causes With case histories and the results of in-depth mind-body research, Dr. Sarno describes how patients recognize the emotional roots of their TMS and sever the connections between mental and physical pain and how, just by reading this book, you may start recovering from back pain today.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 341 more reviews...
 Excellent book!!! May 14, 2008
This book changed my life forever as well as the way I look at pain in all forms. I suffered from many different TMS imperatives throuout my life and Dr. Sarno has lead me out of those dark places. I wrote a book about my journey through TMS and I hope it helps many people as well.
Kevin Jarvis
kevinrobertjarvis.com
The best fifteen bucks you'll ever spend--maybe May 11, 2008
I had serious back pain for about seven years. I kept it in control by going to a chiropractor (who tried to convert me to Scientology), exercises, acupuncture, painkillers, and the rest. The pain was in the lower back, and was made worse by sciatica. There were many times when my symptoms were so severe that it was too painful to even drive a car.
I read the book. I found it refreshing to have a clinician lay out some simple logic: how your back is in constant use and is therefore strong, how it heals as well and as quickly as any other part of your body after it is injured, and how his observations from X-rays suggested to him that there had to be a non-physical reason for all the thousands of complaints of pain that he was dealing with.
I thought about what I had read, and thought about it some more. The pain started going away. In short order I dropped the chiropractor (forty bucks per visit), the painkillers, and everything else I was doing, and just got on with my life.
There will be people out there who will not be helped by this book. But if you have back pain and have not been diagnosed with a serious condition, hell, even if you have--give it a read.
All I can say is that this book sure helped me. I don't have pain anymore (almost never at least.) I don't think about my back anymore, and I don't think there's anything wrong with me anymore.
You may have the same experience I had: no more back pain. How does that sound for fifteen bucks?
P.S. Since then I have read up on chiropractic treatment, and realize that the whole profession is pretty suspect. Did you know that the founder of chiropractic was a certain D.D. Palmer, who until then had been waving his hands over people to transfer healing power to their organs? His first claim of success was to heal a deaf person by adjusting his spine. Only thing is, of course, that the aural nerves aren't anywhere near the spine....
If I was a chiropractor I would try to keep my patients as far away from this book as possible. I think their waiting rooms would be a lot less crowded if more people read this book.
 Plausible April 14, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I am an avid runner and I noticed some mild discomfort in my hip and glute this past fall. I ran a road race on Thanksgiving morning and then, as I do every year, I put my running shoes away for most of the winter. That next week the pain in my glute increased and to make matters worse I started to get a cold with coughing and sneezing that sent the pain shooting down my leg. Most of the discomfort was at night. Once I got moving in the morning I felt OK. An MRI showed a herniated disk L4-L5 and the doctor said that could potentially be pinching on a nerve, possibly causing the pain (note potentially/possibly). He admitted that herniated disks usually do not cause pain and they usually cannot say for sure what's causing the pain. He said that the only protocal at this time is PT and cortisone injections. If there is numbness, weakness or bowel control issues then surgery is the last resort. He made no guarantees. I started taking Yoga and Pilates classes. I consulted with a chiropractor who said my running days were over and recommended "Decompression Therapy" at a cost of $4,000 not covered by insurance. I went as far as the 3rd cortisone injection and after 5 months nothing changed better or worse. My sister sent me this book and I started reading it on my bus ride to work one day and that afternoon I went out and bought a new pair of running shoes and I am easing my way back into it. I am having mostly good days, now and then a spasm hits but I agree with Dr. Sarno that it is harmless.
Yes this book seems kind of light weight but the premise makes sense to me. Any medical jargon would mostly be over my head anyway. Dr. Sarno stresses that any lasting pain should be evaluated by a doctor to rule out cancer/tumors/fractures/etc...I disagree with the argument that he is taking advantage of desperate people to make money. I am sure he was already well off financially before he wrote any books. I think it's the other "alternative therapists" such as chiropractors that are taking advantage of those who are desperate. My doctor said that most back pain resolves itself and that whatever treatment you were pursuing at that time would get credit for resolving it. For $10 the book is a pretty reasonable bargain even if only for the placebo effect. Isn't that what Dr. Sarno is trying to say anyway!
Perhaps it's just telling me what I want to hear. Aren't we all like that? Notice the sedentary, overweight types who rationalize that running (and exercise in general) is bad for your body and makes no difference?
24 Years of Back Pain Gone Overnight March 13, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A friend of mine suggested I read this book about a year ago. I went to Amazon and read the comments and found both positive and negative comments. The fairly consistent chorus of negative comments led me to decide not to buy it. It was that and the fact that I just didn't believe that the mind could "heal" the very "real" and debilitating pain that I had experienced for 24 years.
Several months after my friend's recommendation, I found that my back had started to hurt more in direct correlation to an emotionally stressful situation that lasted several weeks. Since I was doing nothing physically that would have elevated the back pain, I realized that there was a psychological connection. So I bought the book, paid for the overnight shipping so I could read it on the plane to my surfing destination.
Surfing has always been hard on my back. My previous surfing trip to New Zealand was compromised by my back pain, I surfed about half as much as I could have without the pain.
On the plane I skimmed thru much of the first chapters and read the ones about the cure. The next day my back pain was gone. I surfed 5 days straight in powerful surf with some really heavy wipe-outs that would have killed my back without the knowledge in this book. On one wipe-out I was slammed hard to the bottom, hip-first. That would have normally put me out for a few days, but I surfed the rest of the day completely pain free (except for a bruised hip). I was able to surf with abandon, without fear, with joy again.
I can't express in words how elated and amazed I am and how grateful I am to Dr Sarno for this book.
Obviously, by reading the comments it doesn't work for everyone. I have a theory about that. In his book Dr Sarno says that the suppression of emotions are what cause the back pain. But the clincher for me was this fact that he laid out:
(I'm paraphrasing) The largest bone in the body, the femur, if broken will heal itself and you will be able to run a marathon on it again. If a muscle tears, it will heal itself also. The human body heals itself physically, period. There is nothing special about the muscles around the lower back (or anywhere else). It makes no logical or medical sense for a muscle strain or injury in the back to cause pain for years.
It was this statement that made tremendous sense to me. Literally overnight, I decided to not believe the b.s. I was telling myself subconsciously -- that I had a "bad back". The pain has been gone ever since. It's been 3 months of consistently pain-free life. Walking a distance of 10 blocks used to cause the pain to get worse, as did sleeping on a soft bed, or sleeping on my stomach or slouching in my chair. None of that bothers me any more. I hike 3-5 miles regularly, play volleyball (that would have destroyed my back), sleep on my stomach, slouch in my chair if I feel like it, no longer bring an air mattress to hotels. What a tremendous liberation -- it's really amazing!!
So back to my theory of why I think it doesn't seem to work for everyone:
Under-developed rational thinking skills.
In the U.S. and probably in all of western society (at least), we are not taught how to think rationally. It took a few months or more for me to learn (or re-learn) how to truly think rationally. I now know that my back pain was a myth that I had believed in. I have since proven that it was a myth, but it takes a very deeply rooted belief to create the kind of pain I experienced, and for so long. My theory is based on having enough of the proper mental skills to destroy that myth. My hypothesis is that those who read the book with poor results are lacking rational thinking and myth-busting skills.
My rational thinking skills were helped tremendously by the philosopher Stefan Molyneux (of freedomainradio dot com). I really think that it takes a mind that is well versed in rational thinking to truly grasp the power of Dr Sarno's book and to truly destroy the myth of back pain that is deeply rooted in the mind.
To truly and deeply understand that the body heals itself and that it makes no sense that the muscles around the lower back -- that they, and only they, just don't heal -- takes genuine rational thinking skills. Actually, I think it's the myth-busting rational thinking skills that listening to Mr Molyneux's podcasts and reading his books can help with immensely. So if Sarno's book hasn't helped, try taking the "red pill" of rational thinking and myth-busting that Mr Molyneux delivers. It will be the most potent (and liberating) red pill you will ever take.
So read Sarno's book, put it into practice, and if it doesn't work within a couple weeks, work on your rational thinking skills and read it again.
The most important medical book ever written March 7, 2008
Dr. Sarno's discovery of psychosomatic causation may be the most important medical discovery of the century. If you suffer any type of chronic pain, spend the $12, read the book, and tell everyone you know.
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