Talk:John E. Sarno

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I removed some copyright violations that were on this page. The text was directly copied from http://www.healingbackpain.com/treatment.html, which contains the same misspellings as this article had (such as "ondisorders", "onproviding", and "betweenemotions").

If the page is being edited by the good Doctor, please note that information that is clearly autobiographical or that reads like an ad is generally looked down on. --Interiot 20:05, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] POV problems

This article is a questionable and I may flag it. First, the citation about him "curing thousands" is a link to a commercial alternative-medicine site which is not a proper source. Second, there is no mention here of the fact that that his methods are controversial, which is mentioned in the Tension Myositis Syndrome article. If this article makes claims about him curing thousands then it needs to mention the controversy. The article needs work. --Howdybob 19:19, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to know on what basis you find Dr. Sarno's methods controversial. The central fact is that they work. He is a professor of Clinical Rehabilitation Medicine at the NYU School of Medicine, and attending physician at the Howard A. Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine at the NYU Medical Center, and has been for over 30 years (He's 83 now). His methods have been developed with real suffering patients in a clinical setting during that time, and he has refined them over the years so that they consistently work and relieve people of their chronic pain. They have been put into practice by numerous other doctors, with great success. In the cited article he estimates his success rate at 90%. When John Stossel of 20/20 (a true skeptic) did a segment on him in 1999, he was healed from 20 years of back pain, and they checked a sample of his records and found all twenty patients had positive results. [1]Ralphyde 01:57, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
You removed the POV template but you added a statement that he his still "curing patients" without a source on that statement. First of all, I quote the linked WP article tension myositis syndrome:
Sarno's theories and management plan for back pain and other TMS equivalents are not widely accepted by the conventional medical community, but have a high rate of success. [emphasis mine]
Second, there are simply no valid citations whatsoever in the TMS article for these "tens of thousands" of cured patients. Where the good Doctor teaches is irrelevant as to the validity of his methods or the unsupported assertions that he has cured tens of thousands. A link to a commerical alternative-medicine site isn't an acceptable source. I haven't looked at that .ram link yet but if it's good then you need to cite the report somehow, not with a .ram file and change "tens of thousands" to "ABC reporters verified that twenty patients say they had positive experiences with Dr. Sarno." It needs neutral, accepted sources, both on any evidence in support of his methods and on what the controversy may be and any arguments that others have against his methods. Both of these articles look absolutely rotten to me and I'm going to flag TMS for needing citations at least. I will continue this discussion at Talk:Tension myositis syndrome. --Howdybob 04:44, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Howdybob, I'd like to know if you know anything about TMS or Dr. Sarno, or whether you are simply acting on a whim to question his reputation. I've been studying TMS for the past two years since my wife was afflicted with severe chronic back pain, and have read his last three books, plus those of three others who have written about TMS, which is perhaps the most successful treatment for chronic back pain out there. His latest book contains chapters by six other doctors. I've also had two friends with chronic back pain for 17 years and more, heal themselves totally by simply reading his book, Healing Back Pain, and applying the attitude adjustments recommended. There are millions of people in severe pain out there, and Dr. Sarno seems to have discovered the key to healing it, and people need to know that his methods are available and successful instead of subjecting themselves to surgery which is 30 to 50% unsuccessful. And why do you call that citation invalid? It's an article on a medical information website, not commercial that I can tell. What is "rotten" about it? What is your interest in TMS?Ralphyde 06:58, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I made some small changes to try to move this to a more neutral persective. I removed references to how many patients he has "cured" and changed it to simply "treated." I think this article is pretty good now though it might be good to emphasize the controversy a bit more. The main issue is the TMS article, where all this needs to be thoroughly discussed and referenced. Work should concentrate there, and that work would help determine what might need to be said here about any controversy. Please discuss the latest version below here. --Howdybob 07:08, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

  • I tried to make it more neutral. The referenced article on WholeHealth, about the number of persons were cured/treated does not actually say they were cured with his own method, nor does the article tell much about TMS. Therefore, I've left out the part that says they were treated "by educating them on his beliefs of a psychological and emotional basis to their pain", and rephrased the sentence. I agree with Howdybob that the commercial alternative medicine-site is not a good source. I think the article can still be a lot better. The point is that he has a lot of experience (which needs a (good) reference IMHO) and not whether his alternative curing method is actually working or not, that should be on the TMS article. Anoko moonlight 23:28, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't believe you made an improvement to the article. Dr. Sarno's methods are well known, and his success is well known. He believes that most chronic back, neck, and limb pain is psychosomatic and that the cure is educating the patient to look for the emotional and psychological causes of their pain so that they can change their attitude to the pain, so that it no longer acts as a distraction or agent of repression, which defeats the unconscious strategy of TMS. This has been proven to work successfully for over thirty years of frontline clinical experience at the Howard A. Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine at the New York University Medical Center. If you are truly interested in Dr. Sarno, I suggest you watch the 14 minute 20/20 segment on his methods to educate yourself. It offers convincing evidence that the method works when the patient accepts the diagnosis, as it did on all three patients studied, including one from a wheelchair to jogging painlessly in three months, on John Stossel himself, on Howard Stern, Imus, and Ann Bancroft, on the hundreds of listeners who called in to recommend Dr. Sarno, and on all 20 of the random patient records that were checked by 20/20. It's eye opening.[2]
As to the fact of six other doctors writing chapters in his newest book, one only needs to look at the table of contents of the book on Amazon.com.[3] It's self-evident, verifiable, and not the place for a citation. Should they be listed? I don't think so. Ralphyde 05:44, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
I totally agree on the fact that no reference is required for the 6 doctors contributing to the book, I couldn't find the co-authors very easily but the table of contents clearly lists them and I've quickly scanned for their title and they seem all to be MD indeed, so I guess I decided too quick.
The act of reverting the other edit as well however seems strange to me and I do not agree on that decision. I did not state his method did or did not work, I made it more fact-like, like any article should be. You did not provide new information in the talk page, you just said the same think as you did before. The reference Whole Health MD does not state that he has cured ten thousand patients by educating them on his beliefs of a psychological and emotional basis to their pain, it just states that he has treated that many patients. This claim is an interpretation of the article by Wikipedia, and this I think should be avoided, so please remove this sentence. Once more, Whole Health MD is NOT a proper reference, neither is 20/20, just look at the Wikipedia page how debatable the contents of that show are. To give another example about the reference: Whole Health MD also implies that Magnetism is an effective method against all sort of pains [4], while the scientific world does not accept this, see Magnet therapy.
We should be VERY critical about this. I totally believe that the good man has cured many people, but I have seen no proof that his method is widely accepted by scientists. Untill those proofs have been added, please remove any contents from the page that might look like such interpretations. If you will not do so or provide acceptable facts or do this, I'll do it. If his methods are so exceptionally, there would have been more scientific research on the topic. If you do not agree, I'll ask moderators to review the article.Anoko moonlight 13:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Dear Anoko, The quote that you object to is the essence of Dr. Sarno's treatment in summary. He states this in many places, including his four books on the subject, and it can be inferred from the cited article. And the article does give a good overview of his theory and his successes. After all, the man has been refining his treatment at the Rusk Institute with 500 new patients every year since 1965, becoming world famous for his success, which he estimates in the article at 90%. (He's 84 now and still working and is in great demand). By the way, did you watch the 20/20 video?.[5] While it is true that the conventional medical community has not whole heartedly accepted his ideas or treatment, the fact is that his methods work. Most of the doctors that have taken up his methods were first cured by him, so learned firsthand that his mindbody method works, despite the skepticism of the mainstream medical community, who don't have a real cure for most chronic pain other than drugs and surgery, which often makes the pain worse, at great cost. Did you happen to read the recent NY Times article entitled, "The Spine as Profit Center?"
The difficulty is in doing so-called "scientific studies" with a psychosomatic treatment. Dr. Andrea Leonard-Segal, one of the contributors to The Divided Mind: The Epidemic of Mindbody Disorders, is a board-certified Internist and Rheumatologist, and a Professor of Medicine at George Washington University Medical School and a physician at the Center for Integrative Medicine at GWU Medical Center. Her article is entitled "A Rheumatologist's Experience with Psychosomatic Disorders," and is based on her solid clinical experience. She discusses the difficulty of creating studies with mindbody disorders such as TMS: She says, "It is difficult because psychological treatments do not easily lend themselves to the ideal clinical trial methodology. How can we conduct studies to see if psychological approaches can cure this condition? Patients with TMS must be psychologically open to the diagnosis to improve. They must be ready to renounce the idea that their cure is to be found in structural or chemical means. Thus, it would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to conduct a study in which patients with the same condition are randomly assigned to different treatments, one of which is the TMS treatment. Because getting better depends on accepting the TMS diagnosis, most patients assigned to TMS treatment would not improve because they would not be able to accept the diagnosis." p.259
And not accepting the diagnosis would be the equivalent of not taking one's prescribed medicine. So there are few "scientific studies," though the Seligman Medical Institute was formed in 2003 to provide such studies. The important thing to note, however, is that the treatment is highly successful for those who can accept the diagnosis, and patients looking for a cure for their suffering need to be able to find this out. Dr. Leonard-Segal, herself a victim of backpain was finally cured by Dr. Sarno. She writes, "It dragged on for a few months and I could not figure out the reason for it. I saw a few physicians who offered standard diagnoses and prescriptions that did not make sense and were of no value. The continuing pain eventually led me to John Sarno, M.D., at the Rusk Institute, New York University Medical Center, first as a patient and then as a colleague; thus began the most profound and rewarding medical education that I had experienced both personally and professionally. This education became a new pathway to benefit patients in a simple, noninvasive, and confidence-building way." p.248. Please watch the above mentioned video (only 14 minutes) if you haven't already.[6] John Stossel's brother, the doctor, represents the typical skeptical attitude of the medical community, and so he doesn't find a cure. But it's very convincing that the mindbody treatment does indeed work. Thanks for listening. Ralphyde 16:19, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes I have watched the movie you're mentioning here dozen of times, and it's comparable to any dramatizing commercialized show about alternative methods. It's not a good basis for concluding anything. You're not giving any proof or reason why to leave the reference on Wikipedia, so I'm deleting it. Please do not pull it back in, it's not appropriate to refer to it from Wikipedia. Anoko moonlight 10:29, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
I can hardly believe you have watched the 20/20 segment on Dr. Sarno [7] dozens of times if you can call it a "dramatizing commercialized show about alternative methods." It's investigative reporting on a well known news show by a man who is known for his skepticism, yet who was cured immediately of many years of chronic back pain by Dr. Sarno using his educational and psychological approach. There is nothing commercialized about it. As to the citation from WholeHealthMD, it is a news story based on interviews on a medical site, which gives a good background about Dr. Sarno's ideas, and adequately supports the statement that it refers to, which is not controversial. If you can find a better citation, then replace it, but don't just delete the citation which has been there for over a year.
You said above, "I totally believe that the good man has cured many people, but I have seen no proof that his method is widely accepted by scientists." This is true. It is not widely accepted by "scientists." That is because most "scientists" have no interest in psychosomatic medicine. They'd rather keep the mind and body separate. As Dr. Sarno said in the 20/20 segment about their attitudes, "If you can't prove it in the laboratory, it doesn't exist." But the fact is that his methods are proven by the 20/20 segment, decades of successful treatments at the Rusk Institute, and by the thousands who have cured themselves just by reading his books and those of others who have adopted his approach. "He gave me my life back," said the attorney in the 20/20 segment, and this is typical of the many customer reviews of his books on Amazon.com by readers who followed his treatment advice and ended their chronic pain for good. I think the citation should stay unless you can find a better replacement. I don't have time to search for one now. Ralphyde 15:57, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
The John E. Sarno page implies the unverifiable assertion that Sarno's methods work. I'm not liable to quibble about minor details being unsupported, but a reader reading the current version of this biography is (mis)lead to believe that Sarno's methods are not controversial. It may be that he's utterly correct, but this article should make that conclusion if that's not the mainstream, chewed out boring opinion. In a matter potentially so important to readers having back pain, the article should take care not to vouch for or even suggest the validity of Sarno's method beyond what can be verified to be true. Eamon Nerbonne 17:34, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
Eamon, Generally, I like the content of the changes you have made so far. Now I intend to add a citation which addresses the difficulty of doing a "properly controlled clinical trial" with the diagnosis of a psychosomatic disorder which requires acceptance by the patient in order for the treatment to succeed. Sadly, Dr. Sarno's mindbody treatments only work with patients who can accept the possibility that their very real pain might be emotionally or psychologically caused. For these, his success rate is very high. For those who cannot accept this possibility, and many fall into this category, the painful symptoms will continue. Most of his patients have had a tragic and disabling journey though the conventional medical system with poor results, before finding Dr. Sarno, and by then, many are ready to accept such a diagnosis, as all the conventional ones have failed. Ralphyde 18:44, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Updating page

I've updated the biography to include the fact that Sarno's method is not clinically tested, despite the fact that much anecdotal evidence sounds positive. I believe this accurately reflects that many success stories are floating on the web (googling and reading amazon's readers' comments on his books will lead you to them), but that nevertheless Sarno has not tested his method clinically (at least, the references make no mention of a clinical trial and in fact suggest none was performed - of course it's possible such a trial was performed but that the results were not released to the public or are simply hard to find). Eamon Nerbonne 15:07, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Eamon, Generally, I like the content of the changes you have made so far. Now I intend to add a citation which addresses the difficulty of doing a "properly controlled clinical trial" with the diagnosis of a psychosomatic disorder which requires acceptance by the patient in order for the treatment to succeed. Sadly, Dr. Sarno's mindbody treatments only work with patients who can accept the possibility that their very real pain might be emotionally or psychologically caused. For these, his success rate is very high. For those who cannot accept this possibility, and many fall into this category, the painful symptoms will continue. Most of his patients have had a tragic and disabling journey though the conventional medical system with poor results, before finding Dr. Sarno, and by then, many are ready to accept such a diagnosis, as all the conventional ones have failed. Ralphyde 18:49, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I still disagree with the contents, but the way it is put now is a lot more neutral. The reference to his own book to prove that it is hard to have a clinical trial is ridiculous, so I've made it neutral by saying it is the book who mentions it. I still don't see why references to an alternative commercial medical centre would improve anything in this article. Anoko moonlight 01:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
The reference was to a totally different author, who had made a very good point regarding the difficulty of having a "properly controlled clinical trial" with a psychosomatic diagnosis. The fact that it was published in a book for which Dr. Sarno is the major author, as a separate chapter does not invalidate the very illustrative and cogent point made by Dr. Leonard-Segal in her separate chapter. She is also a professor of medicine, and an experienced clinical physician in her own right. And the point she makes is certainly valid, regardless of where it is published. Ralphyde 03:50, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Stop pressing undo everytime I improve the article. Wikipedia is NOT for promoting new information, the references are highly controversial. You may be convinced that he is brilliant, I'm not, the current evidence does not, other people who wrote above clearly do think so as well. Anoko moonlight 14:36, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Anoko, you are obviously a POV warrior who has a bias against Dr. Sarno and psychosomatic medicine. Your petty changes have not improved the articles, only wasted my time and yours. As I've told you before, this is not new information nor alternative medicine. Dr. Sarno is a professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at the New York University School of Medicine, and has been practicing medicine since 1950, before you were born, I would guess. And he is attending physician at the Howard A. Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine at the NYU Medical Center, where he has cured well over 10,000 patients using his pioneering diagnosis for back pain and other musculoskeletal disorders. He has written four books on his highly successful methods during his career there since 1965. I suggest you read one or more of them before you attempt to discredit his work. People suffering from chronic pain need to be able to find out about a cure that actually works and makes disabling pain go away, in spite of skeptics like you, of which there are many. I suggest you listen to this recent interview to educate yourself about his work.[8] (April, 2007) Ralphyde 15:41, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
You're not understanding the discussion. Please seek others opinions. PostScript seems to agree with me as well, as well as Eamon and others above. Anoko moonlight 20:03, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Eamon's changes were constructive, which I told him, while yours are only petty, destructive, and increasingly annoying. Ralphyde 23:11, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Gees, are you Sarno himself or what? I understand that having to write NPOV for you is very annoying, but please read the NPOV tutorial. I'm not a so called POV warrior, as I see you call anyone who does not agree with you, the article is biased and that bothered me. If instead of just reverting every change you don't like you would have tried to do something with the criticism, this wouldn't have token so long. Your last change is okay by me. I leave it to others to remove the biased link. Anoko moonlight 10:15, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edit War

  • I believe that, since the article is debating whether the professor is correct in his methods or not, the phrase "according to his book" is relavent, and therefore needs to be included in the article. --PostScript (info/talk/contribs) 15:23, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Autobiographical, or perhaps an overly-zealous fan?

If User:Ralphyde is not Dr. Sarno himself, he is doing a very good job of making himself appear to be, and doing the doctor a considerable disservice in the process. See the history for this article, as well as that for Tension myositis syndrome for examples of how protective this user is against any attempts to fix the bias in these articles - most notably his immediate removal of all NPOV and similar clean-up notices that have been placed. - Pacula 21:24, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re-wrote

I re-wrote chunks of the page:

  • The lead I added a ref to TMS
  • I added a bibliography (needs expanding)
  • I removed the ISBN from the main text, they're intrusive and unnecessary with the bibliography
  • I removed the quote from the Segal reference - it's not needed and adds undue weight. The reference alone supports the statement in the text and a long quote is bizarre enough to make me want it out. I see no reason to support it in WP:QUOTE
  • I added a link to the main for TMS
  • Trivia -> famous patient

That's about it. WLU 22:24, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Notable patients" section

I re-wrote the "notable patients" section, adding some more detail and references. It comes across, I think, as a little bit "cheerleading", perhaps reflecting my pro-Sarno personal biases. Nevertheless, I think a sentence or two of "success story" (per celebrity) qualifies as "notable", and if I failed to keep it balanced, feel free to add in whatever I omitted. By the way, I added an (almost) identical section to tension myositis syndrome (apparently no one famous has been treated for TMS by anyone but Sarno himself), so any big errors in the section ought to be corrected in both places. Thanks, and happy holidays! --Steve (talk) 06:30, 22 December 2007 (UTC)