Since 1991, Dr John E. Sarno has 'cured' millions of chronic pain patients across the globe through his books on the neuroplastic approach.
Although he passed away in 2017, the American doctor still holds his title as a hero by his patients and the psychosomatic medical community. He believed that chronic pain could be caused by suppressed emotions, and helped to popularise the mind-body approach to recovery.
In his first book ‘Healing Back Pain : The Mind-Body Connection’ the hypothesis was solely focused on nonspecific back pain being symptomatic manifestation of a psychological process, driven by stress and repressed emotions that could be 'cured' using techniques such journaling exercises, meditation and affirmations.
However, over time, people across the world with various chronic pain conditions have been proving this approach works beyond back pain. Across the pond one group of UK recoverees are demonstrating that they are ‘living proof’.
A Buddhist nun, a public toilet and Dr Sarno, that’s how you could sum up 50-year-old Penny George’s overnight recovery from chronic fatigue syndrome.
When Penny began experiencing energy crashes, her mind went to her travels in Africa when trying to think of a cause and decided to visit a tropical disease consultant. But instead of finding a foreign infection, the clinician calmly mentioned the words 'chronic fatigue syndrome'. She now had an explanation, but she had mixed feelings about the diagnosis.
“I knew that it didn't have a cure so I kept refusing and saying, no, that's not ok, keep trying, and she really did try but I eventually had to accept the diagnosis” She said. “But in my head, I thought, well, if you're not going to fix me, I'll have to fix myself because I'm not living like this the rest of my life, it was like someone pulled the plug.”
For the next two years Penny’s fatigue fluctuated, one day she could be in bed, the next day up and about but she didn’t give up and began to dabble into reading ‘holistic’ cures.
It was not until she visited a Buddhist monastery that Penny encountered a Nun in a public toilet who mentioned Dr John E. Sarno's work. What happened to Penny next is extraordinary.
“I went home and ordered in the last book he wrote called The Divided Mind and it arrived on the 23rd of August 2019. That night I read about half of it and the next morning I was better.”
“Dr Sarno actually talks about book recovery. He says, 20% of people can recover just reading the book and I thought that's just ridiculous. How could that ever happen? And then it happened to me and which is just utterly incredible.” Penny said.
Unsurprisingly It took Penny two months to believe her overnight recovery was real, and it wasn’t until she met Georgie Oldfield that she understood there was a deeper meaning hidden between the lines of Dr Sarno's words on emotional processing.
Georgie Oldfield, is the founder of SIRPA, an alliance of ambassadors sharing the mind-body approach. She discovered the work of Dr Sarno in 2007, but quickly realised that his expertise had not reached the UK or Europe so she flew out to visit him, and has since raised the profile of his work in the UK by training a new generation of practitioners.
One of whom is Glyn Smyth. After a career of over 15 years working as a physiotherapist for the NHS, his understanding of pain, both from his own personal experience and treating it changed fundamentally once he learnt about Dr Sarno.
"I encourage people to be sceptical. However, if people can’t give up that idea that their pain is structural, then they don't get anywhere with this approach." Glyn said.
"Pain is fundamentally produced as a protective mechanism. So if you put your hand on the hot plate, you’re going to pull it away but I also think that it can be projected to your emotional well-being as well and in some of my clients I can see pain as a justification to why they were treated badly in the past."
He continued: "The clients who I see, I want them to understand that pain is an output produced by a threat, and that threat can be mechanical, but usually for chronic pain it's unresolved emotions, and stress. And when people get that, it's like a light bulb thing."
After joining Georgie's course and becoming a SIRPA practitioner, Glyn was also able to recover from 20 years of back pain and achilles tendinitis.
Penny was also able to begin seeing how her mind and body interconnected and during this period of self-education. She began making connections with periods of her life that had a psychological impact.
“Two of my friends committed suicide. One was Christmas Eve 2016 and then seven weeks later, one of my very closest friends killed herself. My workload was very high, I was covering three people's jobs and then my ex partner who had very severe mental health issues was suicidal and I was also trying to care for my mum." She said.
"It was June 2017 when I eventually slipped, you know, absolutely crashed, it was one thing on top of another and my system just couldn’t cope anymore.”
Thanks to Dr Sarno’s work, Penny is now completely free of chronic fatigue and also managed to recover from an additional 15 years of arm pain.
Her recovery has pushed her to share the mind-body approach. But her hope is to make it freely accessible to anyone who needs it through ‘Living Proof’, her non for profit organisation which is ran by people with lived experience of chronic pain.
Turning pain into power
When 42-year-old Narinder Sheena discovered that her emotional trauma could be the underlying cause of the chronic pain that was preventing her from picking up her children, she was astounded.
It all started in 2019, waking up with a niggle in her right ankle, Narinder visited her GP and without any formal scans or imaging, he immediately diagnosed her with a herniated disc and referred her to a physiotherapist with some extra advice to just ‘walk it off’.
Due to lockdown, Narinder started Zoom physio sessions and began to do tennis ball exercises but the day after, her pain shot up like a rocket.
“I had never had any pain like this in my life, this pain was excruciating but I told myself that physio gets worse before it gets better so I went back the next day and told her what was happening." Narinder said. "She told me I had a sciatic nerve that was pressing on my disc but surgery wouldn't be possible because of lockdown. But she still told me to keep going."
Standing against her living room wall, Narinder felt pain with every movement, not just in her ankle or her back, but every bone in her body was on fire. Five sessions later, she knew this was not the right choice for her and moved to a holistic chiropractor.
After one session, he found a lot of tension within Narinder's neck, an area that was not mentioned by the GP or physiotherapist and reassured her that she did not need surgery.
With a completely different diagnosis dropped at her feet, Narinder felt lost. Not knowing where to turn she grabbed her laptop, began researching and came across the pioneering work of Dr Sarno.
Desperate for an answer, Narinder opened her mind and found something much bigger than a cure, she found a new purpose for her life.
“This was my light bulb moment.” She said. “I read this book from cover to cover and it was me, my personality traits, I’m a people pleaser.”
Narinder also spent time speaking to experts in the field including Georgie Oldfield who advised her to discontinue all further medical treatments and to devote herself to the mind-body approach.
"She told me that I could recover, I could not walk out of my house for longer than two minutes, I could not stand to brush my teeth, I was literally crawling on the floor but she told me this information and that's what I needed to hear."
This was difficult for her to comprehend, but she began to read more books and received further reassurance from Dr Howard Schubiner who explained that she needed to soothe her nervous system.
Narinder then returned to Georgie's online recovery programme and began to learn emotions could be linked to her chronic pain, specifically childhood trauma.
This is also known as adverse childhood experience (ACE), which occurs in children aged between 0 - 18 years old and can include:
Abuse – emotional, physical, sexual
Neglect – emotional, physical
Dysfunction at home such as parent separation/divorce, mental illness, substance abuse, violence and death
The dots quickly began to connect and a clear picture was painted for Narinder. As a child, her mother suffered from mental illness and other factors came into play. At her job as a litigation lawyer she prioritised her clients emotions, she lost her father when her daughter was still a baby and most recently she gave birth to her son in a hospital car park. All of these events left emotional scars on her body.
Narinder said: “Now I started to understand, I thought how I can help myself? I remember my husband working from home and that was a blessing in lockdown, but at the same time he had to do everything.
"Even though I could not cook standing up, I would sit down on a chair and still think I'm physically able and I'm going to overcome it and my brain after a little while started to accept that and when I started doing more affirmations and visualisations I was pain free so I said, I'm not going to stay in this state forever.”
“A month after I went for an MRI and I was told again I needed surgery, I thought no chance and two days after the consultation, I walked for 19 minutes and I thought this was crazy and realised I needed a cheerleader." She continued.
With the help of Jeannie Kulwin, a coach from LA who specialises in nerve pain, and meditation apps such as Curable and Headspace, she began to measure the progress she was making with a diary.
By tracking goals, writing affirmations and visualising herself pain free, soon enough this became a reality and and Narinder made a full recovery.
Narinder's notes - showing her daily goals
Narinder did not want to forget her pain, instead she has used it as a signal on what to do with her life.
This year she decided to follow in Jeannie's footsteps by launching her own business ‘MapCoach’ and is now assisting other chronic pain patients to regain their lives using the mind-body approach.
Narinder said: “The main thing is it's about your nervous system. How does your mind, your thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and your nervous system interact, it's all the messages. And that's what I needed.
"No one's journey is the same, but I want to help other people who have suffered like me and really give them the hope that they can recover as well with the tools and strategies. This is what fulfils me.”
Dan Hindsley's story - recovering from 15 years of back pain.
If yourself or anyone you know may be at risk, help and support is available via:
Samaritans - 116 123 (24 hours a day) or email jo@samaritans.org
National Suicide Prevention Helpline UK - 0800 689 5652 (6pm to midnight every day).
Shout Crisis Text Line – Text “SHOUT” to 85258 (24 hours a day)
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