Steven Ozanich TMS and Pop Culture

Another reference to Dr. Sarno in pop culture! On Season 6 Episode 11 of Netflix show Orange is the New Black one of the inmates has back pain for clearly psychological reasons and another inmate tells her about Dr. Sarno.

 

For anyone who felt or feels abandoned, especially by a parent when they were a child,
I saw a wonderful episode about it in the tv series "Wings" from season 2, episode 20
called "Mother Wore Stripes."

Airline owners Timothy Daly and Steven Weber were abandoned by their mother
when they were boys. She shows up at their airport and wants forgiveness.
Weber, the younger son, forgives her, but older Daily just can't.

Eventually, Daly does forgive her, after they all do some soul-searching.

I'll see if I can include the video here. It's from YouTube's series of videos on "Wings."

 

WSJ article in today's paper: Doctors surprised by scope of adult-onset food allergies. The article doesn't mention TMS, but does anyone else think this could stem from TMS??

 

Emerald
Yes, I do think this could be TMS.
On 1/1/17 I suffered from a seeming allergic reaction and had to be rushed to the emergency room. My airways were closing and other allergic symptoms such as blotchy hands, arms and intense itching were also part of my symptoms. I am not young and even the allergist I eventually went to see said this type of reaction is not usual in someone my age. I was given epinephrine, etc and after a couple of hours was sent home. After a couple of weeks I was tested for a variety of allergens and none showed any allergic response. Curiously, however, a few months later I had the same reaction when I was talking to someone about the book I was reading on TMS (Ovanich's The Great Pain Deception). I felt the same symptoms coming on and had enough wherewithal to ask my husband to come into the room and just gently rub my back while I practiced some calm breathing. The sensation passed in a few minutes. As a follow up, I discovered that every time I began talking to an interested person about this book I noticed my breath and a resulting breathlessness even more. I just kept at it and over the year, I no longer find this troubling me.
So for me, this 'allergic reaction' was TMS. My brain reacting to this 'new' thought pattern of mine and 'blocking' my new thought patterns about my physical issues by creating breathing issues. However, allergies are not my normal physical issues, but this event still brought home for me the power of my mind.
Lainey

 

An old thread I know, but after learning about TMS I immediately thought about The Sopranos and Salvatore Bonpensiero and his back pain that comes at a time of great inner turmoil.

The show itself focuses on Tony Soprano and through his sessions with a psychiatrist we learn about his traumatic upbringing. For Tony, this trauma manifests itself as panic attacks, depression and at one point a nasty skin rash (something else Dr Sarno mentions as a possible TMS symptom).

Beyond Tony, we should also acknowledge Janice Soprano, Tony's sister, who presumably suffered similarly during childhood. While we don't see much of her sessions with her psychiatrist, we do learn that she was in receipt of disability benefits for both Epstein-Barr syndrome and carpal tunnel syndrome.

We can also add Adriana La Cerva to the list. While acting as an FBI informant, she suffers from irritable bowel syndrome.

 

In The Dry, an Irish TV show, after separating from her husband and thus ending an unhappy marriage, one of the characters removes a wrist brace that she had worn constantly up to that point and suddenly realises that she is now free from pain.

 

Hey @Tom_Chase ,

I have long thought of writing a book-length study on The Sopranos & TMS theory. It's my contention that the show is a perfect demonstration of how it all works, even if the writers of the show didn't intend it to be. As you note, Tony is the centre of the show, and his sessions with Dr. Melfi reveal that his symptoms are indeed psychosomatic; and as you suggest, Tony is just one example of what is the major theme of the show (and mechanism of TMS), that of repression—the consequence of NOT looking at your life squarely, being ill-at-ease with how your actions square up with how you figure life should be.

Tony is both a criminal and a family-man; he's a murderer who, as one example of a "normal" social activity, attends his daughter's high school concerts. As a character, Tony is drawn as someone who is fundamentally divided, completely hypocritical, and shown to suffer the consequences of this style of living: moreover, despite the fact that he's a mob boss, I think we as the audience are meant to consider him as a "typical" American. (!!!) My thesis is that The Sopranos shows how the American psyche works—and, as Sarno himself coined, this psyche is divided.

As a few more examples of TMS-style psychosomatic sufferers in the show:

- Sal "Pussy" Bonpensiero suffers from back pain; Melfi herself gives her opinion that back pain is often from "carrying too great a psychological burden." Pussy is, of course, a rat for the FBI, and feeling guilty and ashamed for betraying his friends.

- Paulie has serious cleanliness/OCD issues. Not hard to see where they come from.

- When Furio understands that to get Carmela, whom he loves, he first needs to kill his boss Tony, he abandons his New Jersey crew and goes back to Italy. Carmela, who loves him back, gets depressed and physically sick. The family doctor thinks it might be mononucleosis . . . but we know better, don't we?

- Silvio Dante gets asthma attacks when he's the acting boss, once Tony gets shot by Junior and he's in the hospital. This is the first we learn of this ailment of his. Silvio says it's because "the pollen is out of control"; but we know better.

- Johnny Sac gets cancer once he QUITS smoking . . . but after he's been found guilty of criminal conspiracy. It's like all his guilt catches up with him. (The character pokes fun at the concept that mental state can affect health, cynically joking with his wife that six year olds who get cancer must, like him, have got it through all their "negative thinking.")

- even Junior is an example of this. He pretends to have dementia/mental problems to get out of a trial, but ironically he acquires actual dementia once he gets out of the trial.

ANYWAYS! Hope you find this interesting. I wonder, how many people would find a more in-depth study of this show from a TMS/mindbody/psychological perspective interesting?

 

oh and just one more: Agent Dwight Harris suffers from a "parasite" he gets from Pakistan, once he's transferred from following the New Jersey mafia to focus on Islamic terrorism. This ailment follows him for so long that Christopher, surprised, asks him "still?"

Agent Harris himself admits that he think the "cure" for this parasite might be a veal parm sandwich from Satriale's, the hangout of the NJ mob. Now . . . are we to believe that this intestinal parasite craves Italian sandwiches? Or is it more likely that Harris is both terrified by the new focus of his job (international terrorism) as well as homesick and nostalgic for the NJ crew, whom he secretly has affection for?

Harris's "parasite" is interesting because it's a "physical" symptom that has real effects in the show, not only for Harris but for the other characters, too.

There are many more examples of this in the show. Fascinating.

 

oh and one more: the last episode of Season 2, "Funhouse," Tony comes down with food poisoning, either from the Indian restaurant or his friend Artie's Italian restaurant; he's throwing up the whole episode and is in bad shape.

The episode ends with Tony killing one of his best men Pussy, who's a rat. In the final moments of that episode we see Tony smoking a cigar at his daughter's graduation party, apparently all better, with a long-view shot of the ocean, which is the final resting place of Pussy (where Tony & co dumped the body.)

Hmmm.... food-poisoning, really? A convenient excuse for feeling so terrible, isn't it? Anxiety over killing your best friend who betrayed you—yeah, that wouldn't upset your stomach at all, would it?

 

Hi @anacoluthon33

I would be interested, and I would imagine there are some essays or papers in this area, but none with a TMS focus I'm sure.

I'd forgotten about some of those other examples, but I think they fit well. Ralph Cifaretto also has back problems I think, though Janice does push him down the stairs. Livia and her stroke perhaps, after coercing the murder of her own son?

Happy to read anything you come up with, I've seen the series so many times now.

 

Cool, man, I appreciate your interest, and for bringing this topic up in the first place. I love BS'ing about the show but I don't really get the chance to talk about it this way with the people I know!

Yeah, Ralphie's got a lot of problems and Livia, indeed, there is a lot going on there, both with respect to her as an individual and how she influences her children.

As a corollary to analyzing the problems which dominate the characters of this show, it's illuminating to consider how some of them are given an opportunity to pursue a "way out," as Alan Gordon might say. Adrianna, whom you've brought up already, is such a heartbreaking character because she's so naive. She honestly believes that Chrissy will leave the NJ life behind and they can go into witness-protection. Her mantra with him—"I love you so much"—is so sad because, with him, that love is not enough; his loyalty to Tony supersedes it, always has and always will. Of course, Chrissy makes the wrong choice. Tony not only sanctions Adrianna's murder by Silvio, he also kills Chrissy in cold blood later on. The bottom line? Adrianna and her love for Christopher, even if it's simple and naive, could have been enough to save them both, but Chrissy has his own toxic attachments that soured their one chance at salvation.

And Janice. One of the most conflicted personalities of the show. The episode where she beats up the soccer mom, Bobby forces her to go to anger management—and, miraculously, it works for her! I take this to be a genuine conversion for Janice: perceptively, she notes that beneath the anger, there's sadness; and that the world doesn't make you angry, your reaction to the world makes you angry. Tony, listening to this, registers surprise but also congratulates her for this new chapter in life. OF COURSE this doesn't last long; Tony, forever miserable, finds his chance to bring Janice back down to his level when he brings up her son Harpo (Hal), now homeless, at a family dinner. It's characteristic of the show that cruelty is phrased within humour ("Sacré bleu where is me mama?") but the point is clear: misery loves company, and Tony, too far gone to save himself, can't even bear to see others save themselves.

The point of these two examples is that "family" in the show—both the mob family and the family-family—is responsible for originating these mindbody problems AS WELL AS maintaining them. From a psychological perspective, therefore, the concept of "omertà"—a code of silence, not "talking with outsiders," dealing with your own "dirty laundry"—is exceptionally toxic. It betrays an absolute condemnation of seeking outside help. (This is the excuse for Livia/Junior sanctioning the hit for Tony in Season 1, for seeing a psychiatrist.) For all the good moments the Soprano family experiences and enjoys, there's a deadly poison in the centre of it, and the more you try to get away from it, the more appetizing this poison is portrayed to be . . . even AJ's ill-conceived plan to join the army and fight in Afghanistan, at show's end (ie get away from the family), is shot down.

I think I'll get started on writing this manuscript

 

@anacoluthon33 I look forward to it!

Would the various eating disorders fit within the TMS sphere? I see some people mention them. I'm thinking of Tony of course, but also Vito Spatafore and the Sacrimoni family.

 

Tony, for sure. Remember, Dr Melfi helps trace the genesis of his panic attacks to the gabagool; how the meat that his mother prepares is a product of his father Jonny Boy's violence, specifically cutting the fingers off poor Satriale. (There's a weird sexual element to the meat, too.) Tony's eating noises are a hilarious part of the show that only become more prominent as time goes on; and he clearly gets bigger, as his crimes accumulate. Gloria throwing the roast at the back of his head . . . . there is a ton of emphasis on food in the show, and I'd have to go back through it to tally it all up, but I think you'd agree with me that Tony goes to food for comfort. Even Chrissy says to Blundetto, that one time, that he's learned in AA that Tony eats to tamp down his emotions. I find it hard to disagree with that take. (And, come to think of it, when Chrissy dumps his wine in his soup and storms out of the Vesuvio, he complains that all anyone can talk about is food.)

Which is also what the other Sacrimoni daughter complains about too, isn't it? Not Allegra but the other one, who seems to suffer from anorexia and/or bulemia. Allegra takes after her mother Ginny, who, even though she's beautifully Rubenesque, figures into an episode by lying about her dedication to losing weight.

And about Vito? Haha, I can't say right now, but surely there's something there.

To be honest I don't think too much about eating disorders. That said, food is THE coping mechanism par excellence in The Sopranos. And, going back to Tony, food is the way we see Tony get "divided" as a child: he learns that, in order to eat and survive, you have to hurt people. Eating means taking. (And even a step further than that, eating, growing big: this is what success means in this life.)

I'll end this post by adding that the Italians in this show have a special word for stress, which is the generator of so many of their physical problems: "agita."

 

Indeed, @JanAtheCPA . In the context of the scene, it's clear that the character, mentioning six-year-olds and their "negative thinking," is in both deep despair and complete denial of that despair. That's one psychological reflex that this show dedicates itself to exposing so completely: denial, denial across all levels and relationships, especially one's self.

 

How right you are! In one of his last scenes, Johnny Sacrimoni (the character we're talking about here—boss of one of the NY families) asks his brother-in-law how he'll be remembered after he dies. The brother-in-law responds: decisive, a powerful leader . . . BUT some people think you've become a bit hot-headed lately. Trigger happy. (I'm paraphrasing here.)

Johnny Sac chuckles to himself, shaking his head. "God forbid," he says, "that any one of them should have been in my position. It's a thankless job . . . " The camera lingers on his face for a moment before cutting the scene.

The joke is that being a mob boss IS a thankless job because it's a RUTHLESS job; one that requires violence and murder to stay on top. As far as Johnny Sac's concerned, however, he was doing his job, protecting his family, earning money for the crew; for him to be remembered as bloodthirsty is unjust. It's as if he's saying he had no choice, doing what he did; he can't be held responsible. (Evading responsibility = denial.)

The Sopranos is so good at letting its characters unravel themselves and their hypocrisies in front of the audience while giving us an ever-so-slightest wink. And one of the amazing achievements of this show and its writing is that pretty much all of its characters are reprehensible, morally suspect, deeply flawed—and yet we grow to love them. Even though they're larger than life, they have more in common with us than otherwise; when we detect their internal division, their moral hypocrisy, we can gain a window into our own less-spectacular versions of the same behaviour. But maybe what I like about this show the most is how it delves into so many ills and evils of modern human life, yet it's not heavy-handed in directing how we should react to these portrayals; I'd go so far as to say that even though so much of modern life is satirized here, the directorial tone is one of compassion for the suffering endured and caused by these characters.

Maybe it doesn't offer a cure, so much—unless you count laughter as curative—but The Sopranos offers so many nuanced and relatable views into the nature of suffering.

 

Yesterday I watched Against The Wall, a 94 TV movie about the Attica uprising. There's a moment an officer made hostage says his left side is hurting, and he'd always feel it in Vietnam when an attack was about to happen.