If you are curious about a mind body approach to relieving pelvic pain, but unsure if it may be right for you, I highly recommend Dr. John Sarno’s books about TMS and chronic back pain.

The Mindbody Prescription has been a game changer for most of the women I work with.  It’s the first book on the reading list for my Healing Female Pain program, and all my coaching clients read it as well.

Today I’m excited to share with you another terrific resource to help you better understand the possible connection between emotions and chronic pelvic pain! The documentary, All the Rage, Saved by Sarno, is available to stream online for $6 US.  You can watch the trailer here.

All the Rage is a documentary about the life and work of Dr. John Sarno, professor of Rehabilitation Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, and attending physician at the Howard A. Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, New York University Medical Center.  He is the author of Healing Back Pain, the previously mentioned Mindbody Prescription and many other books on the topic of mind body pain relief. Dr. Sarno identified a condition he called TMS (tension myositis syndrome, or mindbody syndrome), which he believed to be at the root of back pain and many other types of chronic pain and illness, including chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and pelvic pain.

My favorite part of the documentary, as someone who’s been studying and applying Dr. Sarno’s theories for years, was seeing him at work with patients and hearing him share his perspective on our current medical system, how it addresses pain, and why it is slow to change.  We seriously owe this man so much for the impact he has had.

The film includes contributions from other mind body doctors as well, many of whom were students of Dr. Sarno, and others who have made their own contributions to the field of mind body healing and pain relief.

Learn from Dr. Sarno

Mind body principles, including Dr. Sarno’s theories, have been the foundation of my work and programs for women with chronic pelvic pain for years.  Over this time I’ve witnessed countless women relieve vulvodynia, pelvic floor dysfunction, and other types of chronic pelvic pain using a mind body approach.

Like back pain (the initial focus of Sarno’s work), pelvic pain – including vulvodynia, pelvic floor dysfunction, pudendal neuralgia, painful sex, interstitial cystitis, and other female pelvic and sexual pain – can have significant mind body factors.  

In addition to the emotional components of chronic pain that Dr. Sarno identifies, most women are conditioned with shame and fear around their sexuality that can have a huge impact on the body physiologically, especially the pelvic floor.  TMS and Mindbody principles give us insight into how and why that can lead to pain.

More than anything this documentary drove home for me the importance of sharing this information, so that as many women as possible can become aware of the emotional factors impacting chronic pain – and get off the never ending cycle of drugs, surgeries, and other invasive treatments that most often don’t work, aren’t necessary, and can cause more damage and pain.   

According to Dr. Sarno, most of the medical treatments we use for chronic pain aren’t even supported by solid evidence.  

My hope is that more and more women will discover that there are other non-invasive, holistic, and effective options that make much more sense to try first, or at least alongside some of the other things they are doing.  

Mind Body healing works.  Addressing the mind body components of pelvic pain is completely non-invasive and gets to the root cause of pain.

In my opinion and experience that is worth taking the time to learn more about.