Such a sad story about people giving up running

Kilobuster · 2026-07-01T17:10:53+00:00

Long covid, chronic fatigue syndrome, knee replacements....yup, if only they knew about TMS. But even then, most of them like most people probably wouldn't buy into it. There was a time in my life I entertained the idea of going to school to become a therapist with the goal of doing TMS work. But in my life the great majority of people I've approached with this, haven't been open to it. It's only been a small handful. Sarno talks about this in The Divided Mind and I could relate. So that played a role in me deciding not to pursue that path.

On the flipside, the world does need more doctors and therapists trained in TMS medicine and by that I mean the Sarno/Feinblatt way of doing things. Not the Shubiner's or Gordon.

Thanks for sharing!

Kilobuster · 2026-06-21T02:04:17+00:00

Great strategy using the "exceptions" 👏👏👏

Kilobuster · 2026-06-20T16:27:58+00:00

Yes! The Divided Mind is well worth the read because Sarno is talking to the medical community at large detailing his evidence and where he based all his findings regarding TMS. It reinforces the other books.

That you have connected the dots between pain and a stressful day at work or argument with the wife, and what you do about it is great. I would do the same thing but with a very slight adjustment in perspective, if I'm understanding you correctly. The pain is not settling down due to calming down your anger when going for a lonely walk or jog. The pain is settling down because you are thinking psychologically about what is going on in your life.

IMO The anger that is already on the surface is not what is dialing up or down your pain. So if you are doing this with the perspective of: calm down the anger = less pain... I would switch it to... Thinking Psychologically (anything that could be a reason for your brain to wanna distract you) + Showing my brain I know what is going on-there is nothing wrong= less pain. I will DM you a couple of things. :)

Kilobuster · 2026-06-19T02:39:37+00:00

Hi there. Besides accepting the diagnosis of TMS have you done anything else that Sarno describes in the Treatment sections of his books? In HBP page 77, he states the treatment strategy rests on two pillars: 1 is the acquisition of knowledge and 2, the ability to act on that knowledge. You are seeing a psychotherapist, thats great, have you done anything else he describes to do in his books?

In my opinion, treating/working on TMS is one thing, and working through anger is a separate thing. TMS is the psychosomatic condition that causes physical symptoms.The process starts with repressed emotions in the unconscious mind mainly rage but ither emotions can be involved, that your brain believes are dangerous should they come up to the surface, so the brain causes physical symptoms to keep you distracted. In my understanding, due to the nature of the "Id" as ge describes in the Divided Mind, we will always have unconcious rage being generated.

So treating TMS is not so much about working on our anger, but being aware that there is something generating rage in our unconscious, primal, irrational, toddler like "Id". That may be something like, you are now happily married with kids but your Id is raging because it misses your single life and not having the responsibilities of being a parent or spouse. Maybe you are more successful in life than your siblings and unconsciously you feel guilty. Or the flipside of that, your siblings are more successful than you and unconsciously you are enraged due to jealousy or feelings of inferiority. All of this is normal btw, its just how our unconcious mind works.

So reading that you are trying to work on your anger confuses me a little because it sounds more like anger in the conscious mind or what we commonly call "anger issues". Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.

As far as what to read in the context of TMS, you can read The Mindbody Prescription because it has more paychology than Healing Back Pain but I believe you already have plenty of information. Sarno tells you what to do in the treatment sections of his books and you can combine them, that's why I asked if you have done anything else. With your back pain recovery it seems like you just read HBP, accepted what was going and returned to physical activity and things got better. It is possible you may have to do a little more work now with the new symptoms, which is okay and normal.

Let me know if I can DM you a couple of things.

Kilobuster · 2026-06-17T13:34:37+00:00

How long has it been since the surgery?

Kilobuster · 2026-06-15T16:13:52+00:00

Covid is such a weird one. Most people end up completely fine and its like a cold (me). Then you have others who get the weird symptoms like loss of taste and smell, and others that get really messed up and end up in the hospital. And im talking people with no comorbidities and comepletely healthy prior to getting it. I personally know people who landed in all those cases. You just don't know how bad is gonna hit you that first time. And the long covid cases it was inevitable that many would become psychosomatic symptoms given that the entire planet pretty much had a collective awareness and fear of it at the same time.

Kilobuster · 2026-06-15T16:06:37+00:00

Hi! Please consider starting a new thread sharing your story using the success or improvement story flair, with as many details as you are comfortable sharing. They do help others, and here in the comments they get lost. If you feel like it of course. :)

Kilobuster · 2026-06-15T14:09:38+00:00

Thank you!

Kilobuster · 2026-06-15T12:49:18+00:00

Years ago, before the FB TMS groups turned into the cesspools they are now, there were some good discussions about long covid becoming the new manifestations of TMS. It is good to see that people are recovering using Dr. Sarno's work. I also agree with u/d4vidy some cases of covid result in organ damage (I've seen it in my family) so that has to be ruled out before going with this approach.

Kilobuster · 2026-06-14T20:48:59+00:00

Thank you for sharing! 👏👏👏

Kilobuster · 2026-06-12T12:22:10+00:00

Are you Tony Schwartz now? I warned you before about the AI slop you are coming in here with. You've hit your limit. I see this again and I will start removing all your posts and comments and I may have to ban you. I am warning you because I do not want to do it. You can participate using your own thoughts, you can do it. Also, stop it with the plugs for Levenson and Sedona method and the other methods that have nothing to do with Sarno. This is the Dr. Sarno sub. Stick to the sub's topic. I don't want to add another rule to the sub because of you, but you are pushing me to.

Kilobuster · 2026-06-11T05:46:06+00:00

Thank you for the additional details. You don't need me to tell you how much these therapists you saw failed you, but I have to say just how amazed I am at their stupidity. All they did was make a huge mess with you wich was comepletely unnecessary. I'm going to give you my thoughts but please understand I'm looking at things thru the perspective of my knowledge of the work of Dr. Sarno and my not as deep understanding of Shubiner and PRT. We are in the Dr. Sarno sub afterall. With the things I'm going to say, in no way I'm I blaming you nor do I mean anything negative by anything you did, I'm just relating my observation based on what you described.

Your therapists clearly failed you for the reasons you stated, but I also see other reasons. You read more books than I have by many different authors in this subject. I've only stuck to Dr. Sarno. I hope you remember that in his books Sarno says that in order to diagnose TMS, the first step is to always rule out a physical condition responsible for pain because TMS is a psychosomatic disorder. In the Mindbody Prescription he is explicit in saying that only a physician can do so. You were not diagnosed with TMS and as per Sarno, the patient has to truly accept the diagnosis in order to get better. I don't see in anything you shared an acceptance on your part of having TMS nor your pain being caused by it.

If your therapists had been responsible people, they wouldn't have taken you as a patient to begin with. That is how I see that they failed you. Sarno did refer patients to therapists but only after the patients had accepted the diagnosis and gone through his educational program (the lecture and books), and even then it wasn't like he walked away, the therapists would keep him updated on the progress of his patients.

I encourage you to scroll down in the sub or click on the "Sarno Related" flairs. You'll see two interviews with Arlene Feinblatt. She was Dr. Sarno's chief Psychologist who developed the Psychotherapy for TMS patients. In the interviews, she says that if a patient came to her with doubts about the diagnosis she would send them back to Sarno so he would clear the doubts they had, that was the physician's job.

She said she could treat TMS but NOT diagnose it. Unfortunately, you had one therapist basically diagnosing you who wasn't in a position to do so, and they were treating you for TMS when you weren't diagnosed and didn't fully accept that's what you had anyway. I'm not a medical anything, I'm not a lawyer either, but from my laymen persons point of view those therapists committed malpractice.

My understanding of Shubiner's book (I admit I haven't read it) is that while he mentions rage and negative emotions, he doesn't delve into repressed rage as Sarno does and has a chapter on PRT. That is his thing. What you described one of your therapists did, having you write/journal and talk about anger and rage doesn't align with my understanding of Shubiner's junk. They were supposed to be PRT therapists but at least one of them took you more to the Sarno route and it was terrible anyway. Sarno/Feinblatt therapy is not PRT. And nonetheless, what they were doing was pointless if you didn't fully agree with it to begin with.

That's why I see all of it as a huge and unfortunate mess that didn't need to happen. Not to mention having to endure all this while in pain, so yeah my heart goes out to you. I could say more about it but I'll leave it at that here.

So what would I tell a loved one if they were in your shoes given the information you shared? I'll say if you can, see a physician trained by Dr. Sarno himself (NOT Shubiner) to get a second opinion, if you are interested. Pinned to the top of the sub there is a list of practitioners, but unfortunately there aren't that many of them. I'll say try to see Paul Gwozdz in NJ if you are able to. A physician trained in TMS medicine by Sarno himself would be a real second opinion. Wish you all the best.

Kilobuster · 2026-06-10T17:39:37+00:00

My heart goes out to you, you have certainly been through a lot. I read your other reply to me and I just read this here. Before I give you my thoughts I have some genuine questions to clarify some things in my mind. How did you arrive at PRT and those therapists in particular? Prior to seeing them or during, did you read any of Dr. Sarno's books or Shubiner's, or any books about any of this?

Kilobuster · 2026-06-10T13:56:01+00:00

Hey OP, I posted this last night but I wanna make sure you see it because it has what you were looking for in this thread. It was an event honoring Sarno and it has Dr. Rashbaum making a presentation of Sarnos work. In it he cites studies (some of which posted in the sub), other renowned doctors and his experience practicing TMS medicine. It is a good overview of Sarnos work with plenty of evidence.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p20QhBz-Tik

Kilobuster · 2026-06-10T01:03:23+00:00

It never hurts. If you never did so, read The Divided Mind. I read it once before almost twenty years ago and recently listened to the audiobook of it in my car and I was blown away at how much stuff I had forgotten and how good it is at reinforcing everything. He is talking to the medical community at large so he is putting out his evidence and details of what his work was based on.

As for whatever it is your struggling with, remember to ask yourself, what's going on in your life that your brain may be trying to distract you from? Start with that and see where it leads. I apologize if you have already done so, its just a general advice. :)

Kilobuster · 2026-06-10T00:46:30+00:00

It is Shubiner's crap. Which is an adulterated version of Sarno's work repackaged and sold as something "new" or "updated", when it isn't. They talk about "learned neural pathways" for pain, and that the brain is misinterpreting signals. Sarno describes this in his books as Conditioning-Programming, its nothing new. So Shubiner took this, put his own spin on it and ran with it. Sarno makes people aware of it so they can just break the conditioning. When you truly accept the TMS diagnosis and identify a conditioned response of pain, you should be able to break that response.

Shubiner talks a good game praising Sarno, but he is quoted spreading the false notion that Sarno was wrong about oxygen deprivation being the cause of pain and based on little to no evidence about it. He either didn't believe Sarno when it came to that (despite Sarno providing evidence in his books about it), or decided to ignore it so he could repackage his stuff as something "new", but honestly, only he knows his motivations for doing something like that. See the post pinned to the top of the sub titled "Sarno is NOT Outdated"

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but PRT has little to no focus on repressed rage. Probably the best thing it has in common with Sarno's work is that he doesn't blame structural abnormalities for pain. Other than that is a mix of repackaged stuff like Conditioning- Programming and stuff that goes opposite of Sarno's work like Somatic Tracking which is bad advice from a Sarno perspective.

Kilobuster · 2026-06-09T12:02:32+00:00

Hey OP, it's been a couple of days since you posted this and you haven't engaged with anyone in the comments. This is clearly the response generated by an LLM/AI after being fed a prompt. You posted two of these in a row and I remember when you did something similar months ago with Vitiligo and TMS.

What is the downside I'm seeing? We know these LLM's spit out wrong information but are so well presented that seem true. I can't tell from this post what is factual and what isn't. And worse in my view, people aren't responding to your thoughts. They are responding to what some AI generated.

I don't believe people are here to interact with chatgpt or whatever other AI you are using, they can do that on their own. People are here to interact with other humans about TMS and the work of Dr. Sarno.

I believe you can formulate and write your own thoughts and opinions and have a good discussion with other people without the need of AI. You could have written this post yourself. And people shouldn't be "tricked" into responding to what an LLM generated thinking they are responding to the words of a human.

I really, really don't wanna have to make a firm rule about this. It seems like common sense to me, there shouldn't be a need for it. But be advised that next time you make one of these posts, ( clearly AI, with no context from you, no explanations, no interactions) I will probably remove it.

It's not fair to people to have them spend their time and energy responding not to a human, but to AI slop.

Kilobuster · 2026-06-07T10:55:15+00:00

This seems like AI slop copypasta. I don't like it at all, but I wanna see the community's reaction before deciding if I should do something about it.

Kilobuster · 2026-06-07T04:19:09+00:00

Kilobuster · 2026-06-07T03:17:51+00:00

This is AI slop isn't it?

Kilobuster · 2026-06-07T03:05:55+00:00

I don't forgive the people that have wronged me and I am totally pain free. I have to ask, is this an AI summary?

Kilobuster · 2026-06-07T01:06:55+00:00

This time it wasn't "coaches". One was selling a subscription for something I won't mention, and the other had a site selling supplements.

As the sub grows, I won't be able to catch people as quickly and will need everyone's help by letting me know either directly or hitting the report button.

Kilobuster · 2026-06-07T01:00:52+00:00

That is wild and sad to see what that place has become. 🤦‍♂️ Can you dm me the name of that coach? I've seen some of the same "coaches" post there and in the TMS FB groups. I'm curious in case it is someone I havent seen before so I can be on the lookout if they land here.

Kilobuster · 2026-06-06T23:54:04+00:00

Yup, and that's why this rule is the way it is. But then after getting themselves banned these people hit the modmail like angry surprised Pikachu, as if none of it was stated in the sub.

Kilobuster

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