But if it [feeling better] was all in my mind, so what? What is the goal if not to impact my mind? Our mind – our consciousness – is all we have! So why do people knock what might be the placebo effect?
-Losing My Religions, “There is a self! But no free will.”
Someone recently brought up John Sarno, who “maintained that most nontraumatic instances of chronic pain — including back pain, gastrointestinal disorders, headaches and fibromyalgia — are physical manifestations of deep-seated psychological anxieties.”
Having experienced much pain - including gastrointestinal pain that went undiagnosed for over a year - I would tend to disagree with the "most" in the sentence above. Once I got my Crohn's diagnosis, treatment eventually helped. (The treatment then exacerbated what became degenerative osteoarthritis. So it goes.)
But I'm all for whatever helps anyone. I would tend to doubt that most of the people who attacked Sarno as a "quack" were not suffering from chronic pain. Try anything and everything - chronic pain is simply horrible. As a materialist reductionist, I hate to say it, but better to continually risk losing money than suffering without hope. Maybe you'll be like Juno DeMelo, "I Have to Believe This Book Cured My Pain."
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