I am partway through The Divided Mind, finding it fascinating, encouraging and stimulating lots of thought, writing, research, and self-exploration.
A question: Sarno initially developped his theory to apply to back pain and it seemed to involve the brain depriving the area of oxygen. Then he extended his theory to cover other kinds of pain - "TMS" - but I'm unclear whether it's still based on the idea that the site of pain, i.e. in our case the GI tract, is being deprived of oxygen.
Also, I wrote to Sarno to ask what kind of psychological therapy would be of assistance for IBS. He replied rather tersely, but I received a longer response from his assistant:
"The type of psychotherapist you will need to find in Toronto should be analytically trained. That is the key word "analytically". Should you find such a person Dr. Sarno suggests that you share the book with that therapist and see if he/she agrees with his concepts. When we say "no physicians trained in Canada" is not misleading - it means that no M.D. from Canada has come to New York and trained with Dr. Sarno in the diagnosis and treatment of TMS. All the physicians we recommend to patients living in the US have all come to NY and trained with Dr. Sarno. If you know of a physician in Canada who would be willing to come to New York and train with Dr. Sarno he/she can call Dr. Sarno and speak to him directly.
There is a video/DVD of Dr. Sarno's lecture (2hours) produced by one of Dr. Sarno's patients that is available by calling 800 263-6939."
I also found this website and this handout from Sarno's department at Harvard-Ratcliffe helpful.
-------------------- IBS-C, lots of spasm and trapped gas.
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Re: The Divided Mind - Psychological Causes
