Same. And yet so many people are unwilling to take the leap of faith. It's sad because the same thinking patterns that cause them to avoid Sarno likely lead to a lot of grief in other areas of their lives.

It's the scientism mindset which is common among technical types. Anti-woo errs into a more dogmatic dismissal and closed mindedness towards anything not backed by multiple large RCTs and consensus among experts.

I think a balance is in order. It's good to explore things that don't have conclusive evidence with an open mind while maintaining a degree of healthy scepticism. If it improves subjective well-being then it works for all practical purposes. Whether that's all placebo doesn't even matter at that point.

Rigorous epistemology != a good approach to self-help.

I'm about as far away from the scientism mindset as one can get but I don't think that's really the reason. To assume that someone can solve a debilitating problem that affects millions in hours by selling you a book is probably in 99% of cases a scam.

And the subjective well being point isn't so simple as well. If there really is a physical problem the placebo isn't a treatment but masks symptoms, which is counter-productive long term. Plenty of people pour substantial money into alternative medicine that doesn't address their illnesses because they feel subjectively better for a while.

This is where the healthy skepticism part comes in. Going all out woo or quack isn't what I'm suggesting, and I'd agree that that's even worse than being too closed minded. Crystal healing doesn't work and people shouldn't try it.

But if something sounds sort-of plausible, has some tentative but low quality evidence, and it's low cost and low risk, and it's not going to distract you from more proven treatments, then just try it out and see if it works. A small handful of people won't even go that far because of dogmatically orthodox thinking, and those are the people I'm addressing.

> To assume that someone can solve a debilitating problem that affects millions in hours by selling you a book is probably in 99% of cases a scam.

If it's psychosomatic pain, there's legitimate scope for a self-help book to actually improve things for them. Also why wouldn't we expect practitioners who have been hands on with clients for 20 years to not have picked up some useful tricks that didn't make it into peer reviewed studies? I feel like your statement here is too heavy on the skepticism, even though you're right that there are loads of books that are quackery. There can be learned wisdom built up through practice that isn't peer reviewed.

There are hundreds if not thousands of quack cures for every ailment under the sun. How else, other than scientific process, is one to separate the wheat from the chaff?

You say "crystal healing doesn't work and people shouldn't try it." Why not? Aren't you being closed-minded? How is crystal healing any worse than any other scientifically unsupported remedy?

There's a spectrum between crackpottery and solidly evidence-backed consensus treatments. The middle of that spectrum:

- The existing evidence, although positive, may be low quality, or preliminary.

- The treatment is advanced by some otherwise legitimate practitioners, even if it isn't consensus mainstream.

- The treatment has been used safely in traditional medicine for a long time, and simply hasn't been studied yet in a scientific framework.

- The promoters aren't transparent crackpots, and don't use empty buzzwords like "quantum".

- Any proposed mechanisms at least make some basic sense and don't break the basic principles of physics and biology, and aren't clear woo.

What I am saying is that if a treatment ticks some of the above boxes and is safe, then give it a go. They're less likely to work, but the expected value is high because the costs are low.

Crystal healing ticks none of these boxes and therefore can be discarded with more confidence, since the expected value is low, even though it's true we can't be absolutely certain that it doesn't work.

I haven't read the book, but am familiar with the story. The pain origins don't need to be "psychosomatic" for the mind to override it; the pain may be real.

The back surgeon interviewed patients long after back surgery. They reported some help, but some pain / discomfort remained. He looked at Xrays of painful vs pain-free, & found Xrays looked very similar. That's when he started teaching 'pain management'.

IMHO teaching 'pain management' would be helpful for all. Could prevent some surgeries, but even if they got corrective surgery, the self-help management could still prove useful.

> It's the scientism mindset which is common among technical types.

Interestingly, Carl Sagan, in his book The Demon Haunted World, discusses physical ailments arising purely from the brain and in passing points out that there are reasons to believe back pain is one of them.

The book is a fantastic read, because for some reason many people in the pro-skeptic movement recommend the book, despite the fact that quite a bit of the book is critical of skeptics!

Same. Some folks who I love and owe unending appreciation to, that are doing public outreach and education for this in 2021, are Nicole Sachs and Dan Buglio. Their youtube channels, podcasts, and websites, and the guidance and experience therein, saved my life.

When I had carpal tunnel syndrome 10 years ago someone on HN recommended the Harvard RSI program that follows Sarno’s technique.

http://www.rsi.deas.harvard.edu

It took work but it literally cured me. Went on to use the same techniques for back pain and haven’t had that in many years.

> Keep wrists above the pad, and tilt the kbd downward.

TIL! This is the opposite of what I’ve been doing to date.

That image made me think about all those fancy 'thicc' mechanical keyboard on Youtube. My wrist hurt just seeing the video. Low profile keyboard FTW!

If you had that particular type of pain, it will become "obvious". You'll feel the pain of maintaining the wrist flat, and the pain will be less in that posture.

Same with my back pain and lumbar support. Once the lumbar support gave me relief, I could easily tell which chairs/couches were terrible for the back as the bad ones would give instant pain.

what's the secret without having to read a whole book?

Dr Sarno 12 Daily Reminders

The pain is due to TMS, not to a structural abnormality

The direct reason for the pain is mild oxygen deprivation

TMS is a harmless condition caused by my repressed emotions

The principal emotion is my repressed ANGER

TMS exists only to distract my attentions from the emotions

Since my back (replace with whatever pain you’ve got) is basically normal there is nothing to fear

Therefore, physical activity is not dangerous

And I MUST resume all normal physical activity

I will not be concerned or intimidated by the pain

I will shift my attention from pain to the emotional issues

I intend to be in control-NOT my subconscious mind

I must think Psychological at all times, NOT physical.

Sarno started with first ruling out physical causes with checkups and investigations. Only after that did he attribute pains to TMS, only if conventional treatment had not cured the pain.

Yeah a common phrase is to "rule out the life threatening, then rule in mind-body disorder."

ok thank you this. To all the people that has doubted their own pseudo science skepticism every time this book comes up here at HN- you may be relieved as it doesnt work if you have a structural cause for the pain.

The idea is basically that your brain/subconscious creates pain and other health problems as a coping mechanism.

If I remember correctly the solution was basically to learn about that and acknowledge it and do exercises like tell your mind/body thank you for looking out for me. It I don’t need that. Go to psychotherapy and other stuff.

I’m definitely a partial believer in the ideas. Read about it decided to stop going to chiropractors after doing so for over a decade due to often severe neck and back pain and now 2 years later I am virtually neck and back pain free. While doing nothing, in fact while eating worse, not exercising , being stressed out, bad posture etc. I just decided that it was psychosomatic and it eventually went away.

Wish I could say the same. It did nothing for me