Sarno Source Book: Gaylin's The Rage Within: Anger in Modern Life

Just finished reading Willard Gaylin MD's magnificent The Rage Within: Anger in Modern Life (1984), one of the self-acknowledged source books for Dr Sarno's TMS theory. Needless to say Gaylin provided Dr Sarno with the idea of rage repressed into the unconscious that becomes an unconscious reservoir of anger fueling TMS symptoms. At the end of the penultimate chapter of the book I came across the following quote by Dr Gaylin:

"Our anger mechanism is designed to protect us from danger derived from others. Anger arms us for the physical assault that does not come, from physical enemies that no longer exist. It prepares us for a world that we have long since ceased to occupy. In so doing, anger sends us false messages that waste our energies and distract our concentration from the real threats of modern existence. We are now threatened by the very products of that civilization which protects us from the physical terrors of the caves and jungles from which we ascended" p. 190.

Gaylin's concept seems to inform the idea of anger in modern life as a maladaptive response to very real dangers from Sabre Toothed Tigers and baby-eating giant hyenas that inhabited the landscape of our early simian ancestors. Trouble is our primitive survival responses are constantly being triggered in modern society today long after the disappearance of our ancient adversaries. I believe I've heard these same ideas repeated not only in Dr. Sarno but by Gabor Maté. Dr Gaylin provides remarkably prescient descriptions of ancient human survival strategies playing out on the streets and down in the subways of New York City, where no one will meet another's gaze directly for fear of triggering a dangerouos outpouring of violent rage. Definitely a very good but highly disturbing read that locates TMS theory within its modern urban context.

You may recall from various TMS chat sessions that I've been trying to do a deep read of Dr Sarno's sources that inform the origins of his TMS theory.

 

Which is a very Freudian idea - his work is the first work I read that speaks of unconcious rage.