Sarno, John E. 1923-

PERSONAL:

Born 1923; married Martha Lamarque. Education: Columbia University, M.D., 1950.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Rusk Institute, 400 E. 34th St. New York, NY, 10016.

CAREER:

New York University Medical Center, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, New York, NY, professor; Howard A. Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, New York, NY, attending physician.

WRITINGS:

(With wife, Martha Taylor Sarno) Stroke: The Condition and the Patient, introduction by Howard A. Rusk, McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), 1969, revised edition published as Stroke: A Guide for Patients and Their Families, McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), 1979.

Mind over Back Pain: A Radically New Approach to the Diagnosis and Treatment of Back Pain, William Morrow (New York, NY), 1984.

Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection, Warner Books (New York, NY), 1991.

The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain, Warner Books (New York, NY), 1998.

The Divided Mind: The Epidemic of Mindbody Disorders, ReganBooks (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including Rehabilitation Literature, Medical Clinics of North America, Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, Stroke, and Journal of Family Practice.

ADAPTATIONS:

Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection was adapted as a sound recording, Audio Renaissance, 1999.

SIDELIGHTS:

A professor of rehabilitation medicine and a practicing physician, John E. Sarno is an expert in the area of psychosomatic disorders, or illnesses that are psychologically induced. Sarno first became interested in the connection between physical and metal health when he began working in the outpatient department of a rehabilitation hospital. In an interview with Medscape Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine contributor Pippa Wysong, Sarno explained: "After a few years of making the conventional diagnosis and administering the conventional treatments, I came to the conclusion that there was something terribly wrong, because my results were as poor as everybody else's. I found this frustrating and decided I'd better take a closer look at this and really question the diagnosis." The result of Sarno's research was the realization that emotional stressors often trigger physical pain. From this he coined the term "tension myositis syndrome" (TMS) as a way of explaining the group of symptoms caused by self-induced pressure and internalized rage. Sarno continued in his explanation of TMS: "What has been clear right from the beginning is that people were responding to stressful situations in their lives. Even more interesting, people were responding to the pressures and the stresses that they put on themselves. I came to realize that people who tend to be perfectionists—that is, hard-working, conscientious, ambitious, success-oriented, driven, and so on—that this type of personality was highly susceptible to TMS."

Sarno has authored a number of books on the subject, including Mind over Back Pain: A Radically New Approach to the Diagnosis and Treatment of Back Pain, Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection, and The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain. His The Divided Mind: The Epidemic of Mindbody Disorders offers a history of the field of psychosomatic research, a survey of various psychosomatic conditions, and suggestions for overcoming mind-body pain. In a review for Grumpy Old Bookman, Michael Allen described The Divided Mind as "a valuable book, and possibly an important one." Adding a qualifier that many might find Sarno's message difficult to comprehend or even offensive, Allen continued: "If you value your own health and well-being, or those of the people around you, I can only suggest that you acquaint yourself with what Dr. Sarno has to say."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

ONLINE

Grumpy Old Bookman,http://grumpyoldbookman.blogspot.com/ (September 5, 2006), Michael Allen, review of The Divided Mind: The Epidemic of Mindbody Disorders.

Medscape Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine,http://www.medscape.com/ (June 7, 2004), Pippa Wysong, "An Expert Interview with Dr. John Sarno."

New York University Medical Center,http://www.med.nyu.edu/ (November 9, 2006), faculty page for John Sarno.