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| Dr. John Sarno |
Last month an article in Forbes by Edward
Siedle, “How America’s Best Pain Doctor Took on the Medical
Community – and Won” (see link below) featured my favorite chronic pain mind/body
specialist, Dr. John Sarno. Sarno’s innovative treatment could only have been
accepted because he put a distinguished career on the line. He possessed the expertise to back up
his claims. Essentially, he was disgusted by the way the medical community took
advantage of chronic pain clients, or clients with the mysterious fibromyalgia.
He asserted that the way peers treated pain was “gross malpractice, generally practiced.”
It’s not that his theory required clients to spend years in
therapy. To the contrary, Siedle explains: “Sarno’s brilliant insight was that
by making the conscious mind of the patient aware that his unconscious was
creating the pain to serve as a powerful distraction from deeply troubling,
emotionally painful issues, the patient’s pain would cease to be an effective
distraction and would eventually go away.” He wouldn’t be so popular if his
revolutionary approach didn’t work so effectively on people who had been around
the globe (or at least their city) seeking answers to their hellish existence.
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| Image: ABC News |
The way I describe it, based on my own experience, is like... a Twinkie (I heard Hostess is going out of business – how is that possible?). Some
of us use sadness to shield an angry core, and some of us do the opposite: we become angry more easily to shield a vulnerable and grief-stricken core. If you are willing to
get to the cream in the Twinkie and to acknowledge the feelings there, so much
gets freed up. It’s like getting your life back - a little messier, but better for it. However, it’s painful to feel
those deeper feelings and we spend a lifetime finding ways to distract and defend against
them, as though we’ll die if we go there. What we discover is that we don’t
die. We learn to do the Buddhist thing and “sit with the feelings,” and, almost magically, we discover that they release. Feelings don’t fester unless they are repressed or suppressed. Feelings WANT to process out of us. Learning to feel to the
depth of our being is a practice, and, as we get good at it, feelings pass through more fluidly.
Go to the place you are afraid to go. Some people are truly
suffering with an undiagnosed ailment, but I knew of a woman in wheelchair for
months with severe back pain who was out within a week after seeing Dr. Sarno. Another wise soul who offers tools to manage feelings is Dr. Laurel Mellin. I recommend her books: The Pathway: Follow the Road to Health and Happiness or The Solution.
People are too busy to feel, and the body eventually slows them down. Instead
of running from doctor to doctor and quitting all of the activity you love to do
(which, ironically, will only make the pain worse because you will resent it),
what if you were told that all you had to do was to feel? Could you do it?
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| Image: Betty Matteson Rhodes |
While I am deeply grateful to Western medicine for the advances
in treating serious illnesses, and I believe that most doctors make their patients’
well being and health top priority, sometimes old ideas are perpetuated. Like teachers, doctors are often expected to do too much in too little time. But some just don't want to lose money or take the time and effort to change tracks. Siedle
writes: “The good news: Sarno had developed an alternative approach to treating
pain that was immensely more successful (and cheaper) than the radical, costly
conventional procedures of the day. The bad news: doctors whom he relied upon
for referrals enjoyed the revenues related to conventional treatments they
administered and would rarely send their patients to him.” Even well meaning alternative practitioners want to find an answer, and unless they incorporate a psycho-emotional component into their work, they are likely to mistakenly attribute the ailments to physical or structural abnormalities.
Fortunately, Dr. Sarno has succeeded in spite of resistance. And, the
people whom he has healed celebrate his name and theories. One day he will
receive the credit that is due him.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsiedle/2012/11/28/how-americas-best-pain-doctor-took-on-the-medical-establishment-and-won/
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