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How Emotions Contribute to Chronic Pain
Some therapists are using mindfulness-based activities as pain treatment. Do they work?
Nicole Sachs was 19 when she decided to try a psychology experiment on herself. She’d just been diagnosed with the spinal condition spondylolisthesis, which causes vertebrae to slip out of place. Sachs’ doctors gave her a discouraging prognosis: Without complex surgery, she wouldn’t be able to travel, play sports, or have kids.
In a search for other options, Sachs came across the work of Dr. John Sarno, a physician who theorized that the mind creates pain in the body as a distraction to keep people from addressing painful, repressed emotional issues. When emotional pain was addressed, Sarno believed, physical pain dissipated.
Taking a cue from Sarno’s teachings, Sachs decided she would try healing her pain with a journal and a pen. She dedicated the next several months to “excavating her subconscious”: “I came to know myself on another level,” she writes on her blog. “I looked at a child who didn’t feel heard; a life driven by fear and shame and overblown expectations. I sat with the sadness, anger, resignation, and grief.”
Sachs, an active mother of three and a therapist, says she now lives free of chronic pain. Her practice is dedicated to helping others…
