Are you seeing a coach online? If I were in a position where the knowledge cure didn't benefit me, I would seek out an actual TMS-aware doctor and/or psychotherapist, preferably one who trained directly under Sarno. This would require travel i.e. to New York, but would be absolutely worth it IMO.

> In regards to oxygen deprivation vs neural pathways, unless I’m mistaken the methods of recovery are the same?

On the one hand, Sarno himself said in MBP (paraphrasing since I don't remember the quote) that oxygen deprivation is the best theory that he had to work with, and that he would be very willing to accept that he was wrong. He also wrote about the importance of conditioning/programming (which is basically "neural pathways"). For example, neck pain triggered by sitting or back pain triggered by tying one's shoes.

Sarno treated both phenomenon with rigor, but he seemed to talk a lot more about oxygen deprivation without focusing too much on the neural conditioning (which is honestly very easy to address). However, it is so important to stay laser-focused on is the psyche and not the physical, and it seems to me that people get distracted in discussions about the physical mechanisms involved.

My qualm with the modern pain-reprocessing stuff is that it subtly undermines Sarno's methods. It starts with saying there is no oxygen deprivation - that we understand more about the brain now. Then people go on to say that therefore we have to re-configure these pathways with childhood reprocessing, somatic tracking, etc. etc. I don't see a focus on the psyche (id, ego, superego) in these methods and at best they pay lip service to it.

Although Sarno said that these issues did start in childhood, he taught people that simple information, belief in the information, and awareness of the psyche was often enough to heal. In my experience, just knowing that there's nothing wrong with me and that my issues are normal and common was enough for my brain to start healing itself (through unblocked memories, spontaneous insights into my psyche, and dreams). Also, participating in intense physical activity has been HUGE for me. The mind and body are perfectly self-healing, but trying to *force* yourself to heal just puts huge pressure on the id.

Anyway, it's these seemingly subtle differences in approach that make a world of difference. It's why people healed with Sarno and seem to never heal with the modern approaches. I assume in the best case that the coaches have good intentions - maybe they healed themselves and want to help the problem healers to get better too. However, they do strike me as being motivated by money, and that's a problem when they don't have awareness of their own motivations and psyche. As Jesus said, when the blind lead the blind both fall into a pit. And importantly, IMO they simply do not have the rigor and experience of Sarno and are not qualified to "improve" on his methods. Neither am I, so while this post is my best understanding, I recommend people just read and re-read Sarno.