A couple weeks ago, I was meeting a friend at a train station. Before she showed up, I was wandering around and noticed this little kid being pushed by his father in a stroller. He was probably around three or four and was just bawling his head off. I mean, he was emitting agonized screams […]
I’ve much discussed John Sarno’s theories of psychosomatic pain. His Freud based arguments is that we have a child within us — our id — who is in a state of rage a lot of the time. And this child never matures — it remains a needy self-centered brat throughout your entire life. Now, recently […]
One of the conceits of John Sarno’s theory that physical pain is caused by unconscious emotions is the idea that most people have a lot of repressed rage that they are not aware of. In a couple of his books, he points to road rage is one of the rare times where we get a […]
I’ve been continuing reading and researching on psychosomatic pain theories like those proposed by Dr. John Sarno. And it prompts some interesting musings. The “conventional” theory, as proposed by Sarno, is essentially that a person’s id — their “inner child” — can induce physical pain for a complex series of reasons. I’ve seen others describe […]
I’ve been rereading John Sarno’s “The Divided Mind” — a book I commented on here when I first passed through it. The book’s fundamental argument is that a lot of physical pain has roots in the emotions of the psyche. As such, there’s a lot of Freudian ideas at play. In one section, a psychotherapist […]
A while back, I was commenting on a few books I’d read by physician John Sarno in relation to chronic pain. I found his ideas were interesting, but on some level, wasn’t ready to embrace them for my own situation. However, I have returned to them recently. His argument is that chronic physical pain is […]
I’ve blogged in the past about the pain therapy philosophy of Dr. John Sarno. His concept is that a lot of physical pain is the result of the brain attempting to distract the conscious mind from experiencing repressed emotions. Yesterday, my massage therapist was talking about a similar treatment/philosophy called “emotional freedom technique.” EFT, like […]
I have a few new thoughts related to Dr. John Sarno’s (and Freud’s) ideas about repressed rage and fear. Sarno argues that we live in a society that does not allow us to properly express the rage and fear we experience. So we repress those emotions into our subconscious. When they threaten to spillover into […]
I’ve briefly mentioned the ideas of pain doctor/author Dr. John Sarno. I’m currently reading his book “The Divided Mind” and finding it quite interesting. His theories on pain treatment are very Freudian. He posits that we have this inner child, our id, who behaves rather, well, childishly. Whenever the id feels infringed upon, justly or […]
Years ago, I had the idea for a joke self-help book called something like “Scream Yourself Happy.” The premise was that people could achieve inner peace and release tension by engaging in a process of shouting horrible obscenities at the top of their lungs. It was a lark, of course, but the idea does make […]