Dr sarno's method

Dr. John E. Sarno's work in treating body pains: pain is felt in the body but its origin is in the brain

So much of the TMS or the mind body world is focused upon repressed emotions. That was Dr. Sarno's original theory. He believed that the brain was creating the pain to protect or distract us from overwhelming, scary and even perceived as dangerous repressed emotions. As a result, we've got decades worth of professionals, therapists, doctors saying you have to go find those repressed emotions so that they can be expressed so you can get better

Dr Sarno was a genius. He figured out a lot of things about repressed emotions sense of danger and pain.  over the past 50 years since he started talking about this stuff in the 70s, a lot more has been learned. There was a Boulder back pain study run by Dr. Schubiner or  Alan Gordon, majority of people got better in a 30 day window. And you know how much emotional work they did in that program? None. What do they do?  Teach the brain  safety.

Dr Sarno's method  is very much about knowledge therapy. If you were a patient of his and went to New York City he would diagnose you with TMS based on speaking to you. he'd rule out anything major significant life threatening tumors or fractures. But then his recommendations were: "come to my lectures once a week for two weeks". The therapy was all  about education that pain is actually repressed emotions, mainly rage and fear.

He did a little bit later in his career start referring people to therapy where those people would do things like journaling or explore traumas.  At the end of the day, people were able to achieve a feeling of, "I'm not broken" and  have their pain go away.

the concept of Book cures

People who read his books felt better. Why?    Because  two things are fueling the pain:   fear and the attention we give it. So the people who read  his book and said,"oh, my God, I'm not broken"-  What happened to their fear level?  It  came way down. Now, how much attention are they going to give the pain now that they're no longer afraid of it? None. They go back to living their life. And some people get better just by learning about this stuff. However  is not the majority. So if anybody's listening to this and go:  I've been aware of Sarno's work  for years and I'm still not better. How come I didn't get that book cure? inevitably, people who take a long time to get better probably still have a lot of fear surrounding the pain or even become fearful of TMS itself.

do you have mental disorder

You don't have an emotional problem. You just have an overprotective brain caused by a lifetime of your brain and nervous system becoming more and more sensitive. And now it's overprotective. It's our job to feed it better information, better data so that your brain can make a better decision, which says, oh, good. They don't need to hurt.  

your brain learned to become vigilant

but you can learn safety tooIs it important to feel emotions and teach your brain that emotions are safe.  you don't have to dig up third grade traumas. you can learn safety. if your brain learns to become hypersensitive and vigilant we can learn safety.