Book Best TMS Book?

The best TMS book out there? Which book have you re-read over and over?

 

all Sarno- healing back pain, mind body prescription, the divided mind
Steve ozanich, the great pain deception,
shubiners programs-
sep program here on tms wiki
Dr james aleaxander

oh sorry you said 1 book
I think they all count if I keep rereading right

 

I love the mind body prescription by sarno- awesome

 

I also just keep moving forward, finding new ideas to add onto the foundation I've been constructing all my life. But I fully intend to reread Divided Mind one of these days. What happens with me is that I understand very little the first time around EXCEPT what I'm ready to hear. A few years later, on reading the book again, I may be surprised at how I missed (or have learned since).

Maybe it depends a lot on your kind of brain. My husband can take a paragraph and spend months extrapolating from that until he has uncovered just about everything (and often more than) the author wrote. I skim many books but then my unconscious brain goes to work constructing a synthesis which pops up when it will. If I am "sure" I'm right and the author isn't, I skip whole ideas without hesitation. Of course, I may later discovered that he knew something I wasn't ready for.

 

I'm finding that Dr James Alexander's The Hidden Psychology of Pain (Balboa Press: 2012) is offering me many insights into the origins of my TMS because it's based on his own experience, which is similar to mine, where his TMS originated from an old injury followed by episodes of chronic pain triggered by emotional issues. I particularly like its subtitle too: 'The Use of Understanding to Heal Chronic Pain', which seems to echo and reinforce Dr Sarno's admonition to think 'psychologically'. One thing I really like about this book is that it builds Dr Sarno's theories while integrating them with the latest discoveries in neuroscience. Dr Alexander also gives a whole list of different psychotherapeutic strategies for resolving chronic pain issues, such as Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) and Eye Movement Desentitization & Reprocessing (EMDR). Lots of charts and statistics too for the scientific materialist in all of us Westerners. I'm biased of course because since I started reading it, I haven't been able to put it down. The material in this book is really current and up to date. Thanks Dr. Alexander.

 

Bruce I second that, man ive been loving the read by Dr. james alexander.
as much as telling how it all works scientifically- its a page turner from front to back with excitment
I even had some great dreams after reading his story of his own turmoil that led to new insights
he really knows how to talk right to the mind.
also of his story about football after his comeback
it was exactly the story I saw myself doing in my own life
he truly is a pioneer that has walked the rd weve been on
very informative and hands on with how to everywhere

 

After reading Dr. Alexander's book, Eric, I was able to see how my terrible accident in 1989 really was the trauma behind my subsequent TMS episodes in 2001 and 2007. When I fell 25 feet and shattered my left heel, broke my nose and fractured the occipital lobe of my skull, I had to crawl through the mud and rain to get to my car and drive myself to ER at Stanford Hospital. Talk about trauma! It took me 6 months of PT before I could walk again without crutches. However, when I called my parents for emotional support, they basically abandoned me. "Your grandfather broke his heel too and went around in a wheelchair with a blanket working outdoors in Montana!," said mom. Then, six month after my mother died while I was out running, my left leg started developing sciatica, which got worse and worse until I had a major catastrophic back attack one night while stretching. I realize now that that was also after I had lost a lucrative contract and taken a dumping on the market for $20 grand. Also inherited my parents' house where they had fought constantly. A burden my psyche just didn't like. Financial insecurity and unconscious repressed rage both at the same time. Then in 2007 I took a fall on my left side out running at the same time I was involved in a bunch of romantic turmoil involving abandonment and rejection, also at the same time I was working 24-hours a day finishing a book fueled with money I'd obtained by selling my mother's apartment house in Montana (used to be grandpa's). In other words, every time I've experienced TMS pain it was located in the same neural pathways on my left side that I'd injured originally in a traumatic accident in 1989 that I associated in my mind with parental rejection and abandonment.

You'll have to agree that Dr Alexander's own experience with TMS roughly parallels my own experience with psychogenic pain developing on my left side. Thus, his explanations and descriptions of the neuroscience and psychology behind TMS really make sense to me now. Of course, not everybody's TMS originates with a traumatic accident like Dr Alexander's and mine, but in those cases there's usually some underlying developmental trauma that can range from poor bonding with mother, fighting parents or in the worst cases sexual abuse in childhood. In other words, you don't have to break bones for your psyche to be good and traumatized. But because Dr Alexander's experience speaks so directly to my own, I find his explanation of the origins of TMS especially compelling and relevant.

Glad you like Dr Alexander's book, Eric! Really, really good isn't it? I'm sorry because I was among those who thought at first that Dr Alexander was a sort of "Sarno clone". However, I think now he gives the clearest most up-to-date single author explanation of the TMS phenomenon. Of course, The Divided Mind, with many its many contributors, brings TMS into the scientific mainstream, so is a really, really important book too. I do think that Chapter 5 - The Physiology of Chronic Pain in Alexander's book gives one of the best explanations I've every read about the way TMS pain originates in reduced blood flow and lack of oxygen; shows how those phenomena are reinforced and driven by the patient's psychology. Can't praise it enough.

Cheers,

BruceMC

 

I think there is no "best"; this is a wonderful field and there are SOOOO many authors who are contributing bits and pieces, and no two TMSers are alike. To each his/her/its own.

 

I agree whole heartedly with that, Shanshu, it's just that Dr Alexander's book is perhaps the latest TMS book and his experience speaks to my own. It's as you say, "to each his/her/its own". And most especially any reading that resonates with YOU.

 

Hi, GR and everyone.
I haven't posted lately because I got busy. But I'm fine. No pain, thanks to following
Dr. Sarno and TMS healing. If you are in pain, keep working on the Sarno and his
12 Daily Reminders. I also like tapping and deep breathing and meditation.
I think journaling helped me a lot. My unconscious mind had to process a lot of
my repressed emotions but it must finally have gotten enough, or the right one.

Peace and no pain to you all.

 

man this is awesome - I see my friend Bruce- that's an awesome story bruce- im glad you see
where the doctors heart is, and it so cool that you see yourself their
you really can fire up some powerful thoughts
then I look and see Shanshu Vampyr, man thats such a cool name
we gotta talk sometimes
then my partner on the rd to demascus, Walt
Walt its good to see you on here flaunting your post tms biceps
you guys are great- I hope we all get to meet in person soon
im ready to do some jet plane flying
soon enough eric, soon enough

 

thanks both Eric and Bruce for your endorsements of my book! I really appreciate that it is meaning something to you. Part of my goal in writing the book has been to bring Sarno's pioneering work into current/mainstream psychology, and to bring current/mainstream psychology into this approach- both can only be enriched with this blending. As you will have gathered, i am not a Freudian or psychoanalyst- but a fairly regular contemporary psychologist (although not of the CBT variety, which i guess sets me aside from the mainstream a little). As such, i know that there is a lot in current psychology and neuroscience (not to mention in the historical psychology as well) which can support the TMS approach- i tried to include a lot of this in the book. I would love the rest of my profession to pick up this ball and run with it, and my hope is that my book can help with this endevour. A psychologist is well placed to get other psychologists to listen. The more psychologists and therapists know about this stuff, the better place the world will be. I was very pleased to have recently been given an interview opportunity on Shrink Rap Radio. Apparently, this interview podcast program gets around 600,000 hits on its website per month. I know that there are many people interested in psychology as well as shrinks and therapists who listen to it, so it is probably a great way for the TMS message to get out there to a large audience. The most important thing is that the world gets to know about TMS.

I had a client today who said that every school kid should be able to undergo some learning about this stuff at the end of primary school (here, around age 11-12), and then again in the middle of high school and then at the end of high school (and also suggested that the kids ought to be able to undergo EMDR at these ages, so that they can "un-crumple" - he described his traumatic experiences as a kid in terms of being 'crumpled' by life, like a piece of screwed up paper- and he feels that he is now in the process of un-crumpling via EMDR and TMS to address his physical and emotional pain). He is clear, however, that a piece of paper that un-crumples is never smooth again-nor should it be; the creases etc give it character and depth- just like the world. I really like his metaphor. The world needs more un-crumpling.
PS- if you are so inclined, you might like to write a review of my book on Amazon.com, in order to encourage others who dont yet know about TMS to pick it up and spread some more learning in the world. thanks again- your words are much appreciated.

 

Dr. James, Hi. I will get a copy of your book. Eric Watson says it's very good so I'm sure it is, then I will post it on amazon.com.
Eric and I are close to finishing our book on how, if reading and practicing the 12 Daily Reminders in Dr. Sarno's Healing Back Pain, readers are still not pain free, we have suggestions on how to that, all based on mind-body-spirit healing. I just read today in the NYTimes that big pharmaceutical companies are increasing pressure on the government to stop allowing generic medicine. Thanks, Big P. It isn't easy my living next door to a VP of one of a big P conglomerate. Otherwise, he's a nice guy. My dog Annie says hi to you, too.

 

Hey All,

I would like to buy this book, but have just seen an Amazon review that states it doesn't download to kindle, does anyone else have a Kindle and have they successfully downloaded Dr James Alexander's book?

 

Mike,
Don't see a similar comment on US Amazon site. May be an issue with digital rights in the UK. I have the paper copy, and it is an excellent and comprehensive resource.

 

Thanks Ellen, I think I am going to take a chance, it looks like a fantastic read.

 

Hi Mike, I'm in the UK and have a Kindle version of Dr Alexander's book. I didn't experience any problems when I downloaded it a year ago.

 

Thank you YB44, I will purchase it now.

 

unfortunately Dr James Alexander's book can only be downloaded for kindle i have a kobo which reads pdfs