Liz: People tend to just get stuck on the pain part, but a greater casualty of it is that you can't be present in your life. Michael: The next big trends that we're really confronting now is not just presenting physically but through mental health. Liz: I think personally having back pain actually was the best thing that could have happened to me because it was not just everything that you both just said, it was the blindness to what was going on and to relationship between conscious and subconscious.
Dr Michael Donnino is the founder/director of the Psychophysiologic Research Group, and the first person in the country to complete a residency/fellowship program leading to board certification in internal medicine, emergency medicine, and critical care. Liz Wallenstein is a licensed mental health counselor who has trained in, among other areas, the methodology of ‘TMS Mind Body-Connection’. Liz and Dr Michael join the show to discuss the profound influence of Dr John Sarno on their lives, and the potentially transformational power of ‘Mind-Body’ therapies. Important Links:
Show Notes:
- Introductions to Dr. Sarno
- The relationship between our emotional and physical reactions
- Reasons to be hopeful
- Emotions and conditioning
- A response to the sceptics
- The societal costs of chronic pain
- Mental health: moving beyond diagnostic labels
- Long COVID and mind-body syndrome
- The future of psychophysiological research
- What does the medical community think of mind-body syndrome?
- Doing the inner work that’s needed to heal
- The future of mind-body treatments
- The importance of sincerity
Books Mentioned:
- Your Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma; by Bessel van der Kolk;
- Molecules of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine; by Candace Pert
- Healing Back Pain; by John E. Sarno
- The Screwtape Letters; by C.S. Lewis
- The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play It; by Will Storr
- The Great Pain Deception: Faulty Medical Advice Is Making Us Worse; by Steve Ozanich
- Anatomy of an Illness: As Perceived by the Patient; by Norman Cousins