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.