17 Quotes by John E. Sarno

Acknowledging the important role of the emotions in health and illness, medicine must reexamine its concepts of disease causation.

It is perfectly acceptable to have a physical problem in our culture, but people tend to shy away from anything that has to do with the emotions.

There's nothing like a little physical pain to keep your mind off your emotional problems.

As Snoopy, that great contemporary philosopher, once said, “There’s nothing like a little physical pain to keep your mind off your emotional problems.” Charles M. Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, is clearly a perceptive man.

There’s nothing like a little physical pain to keep your mind off your emotional problems.

It’s all in your mind” is almost insulting, implying there’s something strange or weak about you or that the symptoms are in your imagination. This is most unfortunate, since the symptoms are very real, the result of a very physical process.

For example, if surgery is employed to relieve back pain due to TMS, it will prove to be only a placebo “cure,” and similarly, if Prozac is used to treat depression, it will prove to be only a chemical “cure.” In both cases, the patient will soon develop new symptoms. The TMS and the depression are not disorders in themselves; they are symptoms of unconscious conflicts and must be treated with psychotherapy to avoid the inevitable return of new.

Many feelings and behaviors are no doubt left over from childhood. Children feel weak and vulnerable; they are dependent, and they feel that dependency strongly; they don’t think much of themselves; they have a constant need for approval; they are very prone to anxiety and quick to anger. They have no patience. To a degree, we all continue to generate some of those feelings unconsciously right on into adulthood. What varies from person.

If you ask people to ease up on you because you’re emotionally overloaded, don’t look for a sympathetic response; but tell them you’ve got pain or some other physical symptom and they immediately become responsive and solicitous.