"All The Rage" premiers November in NYC

The following was sent to contributors to the All The Rage kickstarter campaign. I can't wait to see it!

For more info:
http://tmswiki.org/forum/tags/all-the-rage-a-documentary-about-dr-john-sarno-by-michael-galinsky-and-rumur/ (all the rage - a documentary about dr john sarno by michael galinsky and rumur | TMS Forum (The Mindbody Syndrome))

THE WORLD PREMIER - DocNYC

We have great news! All The Rage will have its world premiere at DocNYC, one of the most important documentary film festivals in the US. It will screen on Nov 12th at 7:30 PM at the IFC Center in Manhattan.

It's been a 12 year journey to get to this moment, and we could not have finished the film without you. Thank you. We can't wait to share it.

 

The premier is tomorrow and I couldn't be more excited! My fiancee and I are hopping on a bus early tomorrow and will be in NYC by 3:00. Then, the world premier at Doc NYC:
http://www.docnyc.net/film/all-the-rage-saved-by-sarno/ (ALL THE RAGE (SAVED BY SARNO))

I saw a couple of rough cuts during production and I think it's going to be great. The sense that I got from watching and from talking with Michael is that the film always had a strong component of being about his personal story, the story of Dr. Sarno, and the stories of the celebrities he interviewed. However, as the edit evolved, it focused more on his personal story and less on exploring the science of mindbody medicine. While I certainly miss having the science in there as well, I respect that they need to make a film that feels coherent. I'm also just very grateful that they are making the movie and helping to get the word out. In such a small world as the world of TMS, we all need to support one another.

The completion of the film was actually funded by a kickstarter campaign that raised $81,000. Our community was a big part of supporting the campaign, with a special banner at the top of every wiki page throughout the entire campaign, as well as support from our facebook group and practitioner mailing list. I hope everyone here feels a sense of ownership in the final project, as your contributions help keep the site going, which is what allows us to support important projects like this.

I will write more later, but for now I've got packing to do!

 

I thought I'd also share a blog post by Dr. Schubiner about the documentary. It's from his blog on psychologytoday.com .

Time For A Paradigm Shift About Pain
All the Rage: A film about a medical revolutionary, Dr. John Sarno
Posted Nov 05, 2016

The musical, Hamilton, explores the life and legacy of Alexander Hamilton, the revolutionary hero and founder of the federalist form of government. The final number asks the question,“Who tells your story?”

This moving piece led me to think of one of my heroes, John Sarno, MD. Dr. Sarno retired from medical practice 2 years ago and is now 93. He practiced rehabilitation medicine at New York University and pioneered a revolution in the treatment of back and neck pain. He found that many patients had severe back pain with mild or no abnormalities on X-rays or MRIs. And he noted that many people with significant or severe imaging abnormalities had little or no pain. Since then, multiple studies have confirmed this lack of association.

Furthermore, Dr. Sarno also began to see associations between emotional distress, early life adversity, and certain personality profiles (notably perfectionism and the need to please) and the onset of back pain and other so-called functional syndromes, such as headaches and irritable bowel syndrome. And most importantly, he found that when a patient is diagnosed with having a psychosomatic illness and given a clear understanding of that process, many people have dramatic resolutions of their symptoms, even if they were of a long-standing nature. (He also clearly recognized that many patients with chronic pain have a physical reason for the pain.)

Dr. Sarno wrote four books (Mind over Back Pain, Healing Back Pain, The Mindbody Prescription, and The Divided Mind) that have attracted a wide following all over the world. Yet, relatively few physicians who see patients with chronic pain are familiar with his work. I know Dr. Sarno and have worked with him. I admire him for his great contributions. His work has helped thousands of people rid themselves of chronic pain. Despite his accomplishments, he has been frustrated that these ideas, which now form the basis of my practice, have not been recognized or accepted in mainstream medicine.

To people like me who work with patients with pain and see the powerful connections between the mind and body, it is shocking that Dr. Sarno’s work continues to be ignored by mainstream medicine.

How does this happen?

To understand this, one has to understand how medical doctors (and the public) change their minds. You may be familiar with the story of Ignaz Semmelweis, an Austrian physician who discovered in 1847 that when he washed his hands between delivering babies, fewer women developed serious infections and therefore fewer died. This straightforward yet brilliant discovery was the result of careful observation and Dr. Semmelweis proved his theory by seeing the results in clinical practice.

How was this life-saving discovery greeted by the medical establishment of the time?

With derision. He was called naïve and his findings were challenged and ignored. No local doctors even tried the simple act of hand washing to see if they could also reduce infections and death. Semmelweis was, understandably, frustrated. He couldn’t explain why hand washing saved lives, as this was before the discovery that bacteria cause diseases and are contagious. Sadly, his career got derailed and he ended up in a mental institution.

Over 50 years ago, Thomas Kuhn wrote about the history of scientific advances and how paradigms changed. Most new ideas are resisted initially, especially when they challenge the status quo. Think Galileo.

In the 1980s, Dr. Sarno was in the same position as was Dr. Semmelweis. Dr. Sarno had figured out that many of his patients did not have a physical condition to explain their pain (unlike virtually all of his colleagues). Furthermore, he found that many of them could be cured by making an unequivocal diagnosis and carefully explaining it to the patient. These ideas challenged the orthodoxy of the time and few people believed him despite impressive results.

Kuhn described several steps in the process of new ideas becoming accepted. First there is derision and neglect, which can last for years or decades. Then a variety of discrepancies occur, i.e., bits of clinical and research information that suggest that the old beliefs don’t hold up. Why did so many of Dr. Sarno’s patients get better, when traditional medical interventions didn’t work? Why were MRIs inaccurate in determining who would have pain and who wouldn’t? Dr. Sarno also found that other disorders without clear physical tissue damage, such as migraine and tension headaches, and irritable bowel syndrome, responded to his educational interventions.

Over time, a few other physicians and therapists began using Dr. Sarno’s methods and they had equally impressive results. Research studies came out showing that most people with chronic back pain do not have a clearly defined medical explanation and that MRIs are abnormal in the majority of adults who do not have back pain. Studies of surgery for back pain have not shown better results than non-surgical interventions. Injections for back pain have not been shown to be better than placebo injections. Studies of brain imaging show that physical pain and emotional pain are equivalent and that emotionally laden regions of the brain (rather than somatosensory areas) are activated in chronic back pain. And emerging research shows that psychological interventions that target emotions are showing significant results.

The final step towards acceptance of new scientific ideas is when influential people begin recognizing that the new idea is truly an advance.

It seems that this is beginning to occur. On November 12, a documentary film entitled All The Rage premieres at the NYC Doc Film Festival. This movie, about Dr. Sarno and his ideas, has been over ten years in the making. The directors and producers, Michael Galinsky, Suki Hawley, and David Beilinson, have created a moving and dramatic film.

The film features several physicians (Drs. David Clarke, David Schechter, Gabor Mate, Andrea Leonard-Segal, Andrew Weil, Ira Rashbaum, Roy Seidenberg, and me), some therapists (Drs. Arlene Feinblatt, Frances Anderson, and Eric Sherman, and Nicole Sachs), and a few celebrities (media personalities Howard Stern, Larry David, John Stossel, Jonathan Ames, and golfer Ben Crane) who are all supporters of these ideas.

Over the past three decades, the number of people who suffer with back pain and other conditions treated by Dr. Sarno has increased. However, more people are also discovering these ideas. There is no doubt in my mind that the simple concept that many people suffer with disorders that are caused by the brain will become common knowledge.

(Side note: Of course, this idea is not at all new. Doctors have known that the mind affects the body for centuries. Of course, Freud wrote extensively about this and another of my heroes, Dr. George Engel, did as well. This common sense knowledge just seemed to get lost in the major medical advances of the second half of the 20th century.)

As with Alexander Hamilton, Dr. Sarno’s story will be told by many. If you get a chance to see All The Rage, you will see an amazing film and you will be a witness to an emerging paradigm shift in the history of medicine. Sometimes, a good idea at the right time can turn the world upside down.

To your health,

Howard Schubiner, MD

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/unlearn-your-pain/201611/time-paradigm-shift-about-pain (Time For A Paradigm Shift About Pain)

 

I certainly hope it will be available on the internet, as we want the film to be seen by as many people as possible. Our site has about 2 millon pageviews per year, so hopefully we could help keep an ongoing revenue stream for the online version of the film. I think people might be more open to streaming as it feels less expensive. If the price is low enough, I can see many people snapping it up as part of healing, which could help make the economics work out.

I will be sure to forward your question. Thanks for asking it.

(If I sound a bit like an economist, it's because I am! Teaching econ is my day job, so I think a lot about how to get the numbers to work out.)

 

Hey, folks, I just got back from the premier and the post-film reception. I'm pretty exhausted (only got three hours sleep last night because of packing and catching up on work), but I just wanted to say that I really loved the film. Dr. Sarno was at the film and someone who has known him for a long time reported that he was beaming like he had never seen before. The film is very positive, and I think it just made him feel very good to see all of that positivity.

The final scene - the happy ending of the film - was when two of the psychologists who have worked with Dr. Sarno for the longest presented him with the "Thank You, Dr. Sarno" book. That book and the associated website were projects that arose from this community, but none of us were able to be there when the book was actually delivered (because the event had to be rescheduled at the last minute). Having put so much effort into the project, it was very nice to see additional video of what it looked like as he was receiving the book. Here's a still - image of him with the book, in case people haven't seen it:

​

I will write more tomorrow, but I'm very tired now. I'm happy to report that I did some spontaneous interviews with TMS author Stephen Conenna, who was a patient of Dr. Sarno's and who shared some insights that he learned from Dr. Sarno about the healing process. I wanted members of the forum to be able to apply these insights in their own healing. My schedule is pretty crazy, but I will try to share the two clips as soon as I can.

 

I ordered the DVD, but I couldn't find a delivery date - I can't wait to receive it!

 

http://rumur.com/all-the-rage/ (All the Rage)

 

Wow, folks, it is medicine to see all of your positive comments and feedback. Thank you for sharing.

I can't wait to get the film and share it with family members! Jen, my fiancee, wanted to show it to family members as well.

I asked Michael Galinsky about this and if I remember correctly, he said that they are shopping it around for distribution right now and they have to be careful to not mess that process up by distributing it another way first. Right now for someone who wasn't a kickstarter backer, I think the DVD is your best bet.