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JoeW
United Kingdom
61 Posts |
 Posted - 01/09/2005 : 16:16:19
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I'll start with the question, and then give the background. How do you tell someone who doesn't know Sarno, in a quick "soundbite", that problem may not be physical, but may be TMS.
Even Sarno says that TMS is not actually an appropriate term, but we all use it here and know what we mean. "Psycogenic" is probably the most accurate one-word description, but I don't think many people would recognise it. "Psychosomatic" is still the most likely to be recognised and understood, but it does have negative conotations ("he's making it up"). I find myself saying "it's mind related" when speaking to my wife, who knows some background to Sarno, but is not that interested that she remembers the term "TMS"
I first discovered Sarno after having a conversation about RSI with a group of people at work. One of our colleagues had just left work through chronic RSI, and I also suffered, along with a few others. One guy, for whom I had a lot of respect, commented "RSI is all psychosomatic". This riled me at the time, because I immediately thought it meant the pain wasn't real. It got me interested though, and after Googling and reading, I discovered Sarno, and my life was transformed.
I was reminded of this yesterday watching a documentary about the making of a film (Lost In La Mancha). Before filming, the main actor complained of unspecified prostate problems, and the director (Terry Gilliam) commented "it's psychosomatic". A few days into filming, the actor complained of more pain and had to leave the set. It turned out, after many attempts at diagnosis, that he had a "herniated disk". Hmm, so it was psycosomatic I thought.
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Baseball65
USA
734 Posts |
Posted - 01/09/2005 : 16:30:02
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Hi Joe.
I believe Psychosomatic is the correct terminology,However,due to it's current misunderstanding,I tend to use other terms when explaining TMS to the uninitiated.
I tell people that Dr. Sarno has discovered that most of these conditions are caused by Ischemia,or a localized loss of oxygen in the offending tissue.
Most of them will than agree "Oh yeah...I can definitely see that...sometimes when I'm excercising or in massage the pain goes away,so that makes a lot of sense"
That way you are not misleading them,but not going into the very confrontational nature of discussing Psychosomatic symptoms which modern culture has interpretted as "all in your head"....very antagonistic.
Than they are more likely to investigate.
peace
Baseball65 |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 01/09/2005 : 18:45:28
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My personal short answer to the difference between pshychosomatic pain and psychogenic pain is "...somatic" people are actively looking for something to be wrong with them. I have a friend like that. I've known him for over three decades and he has always been on medications, (in fact I first met him when I was a pharmacy delivery boy in high school and delievered him his meds). He is always seeing doctors and specialists. In the last instance, I remember, he was sure he had a stress fracture. The x-rays kept coming back negative. He kept getting them until they found a stress fracture. He hates cigatrette smoke. He has sensitized himself to it to the degree that he can smell it a football field away. He knows more about the med field then doctors. He lives to have something wrong with himself.
I think the "...genic" people would sincerely like to rid themselves of the pain but have been lead to believe by mis-diagnosis that it is structural and degenerative rather than autonomic in origin.
Both are probably on the same continuum but at opposite ends of it. |
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Stryder
686 Posts |
Posted - 01/09/2005 : 20:01:05
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Hi Joe,
Here's the sound byte that I use, derrived directly from Dr. Sarno's work --- Stress related muscle pain triggered by the autonomic nervous system ---
I don't use the word psychosomatic at all, it infers the pain is not real. As you know, TMS is real pain.
I also tend to stay away from the term TMS with the uninitiated because few lay people know what it stands for, and it sounds very close to PMS ;-)
Here's my favorite sound byte of all that I coined and use here on this forum --- Got Sarno? ---
-Stryder |
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TMS in "layman" terms = Psychosomatic?
