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Quote by John E Sarno, M.D

“It bears repeating here that treating pain is not medically sound. Pain is a symptom, like fever. It has been elevated to the status of a separate disorder on the hypothesis that certain psychological factors cause the patient to exaggerate the pain. (page 152)”

Quote by John E Sarno, M.D

Book:Healing Back Pain
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Healing Back Pain

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John E Sarno, M.D

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“Robert Ader, a research psychologist at the University of Rochester, was engaged in an experiment in which he was trying to condition rats to dislike saccharin-sweetened water. This was similar to the classic experiment of Pavlov in which he conditioned dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell. In order to develop an aversion to the saccharin, Dr. Ader injected the rats with a chemical that made them nauseated so that they associated the sweet water with nausea. What he didn't realize until later was that the chemical be injected, cyclophosphamide, also suppressed the rats immune systems, so that they were dying mysteriously. But the striking thing was that now all he had to do was feed the rats saccharin-sweetened water and their immune systems would be suppressed, even though they had not been injected with the chemical, because they had learned (been conditioned) to associate the sweet water with the nausea-producing chemical. Now, simply feeding saccharin could produce suppression of the immune system. This was a landmark discovery, for it demonstrated that a brain phenomenon, in this case aversion to a taste, could control the immune system. (page 183)”

PsychologyHealthConditioningPlacebo
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“One report that particularly impressed me appeared in the prestigious journal Science in April 1982 by authors Visintainer, Volpicelli, and Seligman. They described a group of rats, all suffering from the same cancer, that were exposed to annoying electric shock under two different ex- perimental conditions; one group could escape from it, and the other had to take it until it stopped. Both groups got exactly the same dose of shock; the ability to escape from it was the only difference between the two groups. Accord- ing to the authors, "Rats receiving inescapable shock were only half as likely to reject the tumor and twice as likely to die as rats receiving escapable shock or no shock. Only 27 percent of the rats given inescapable shock rejected the tumor, compared to 63 percent of the rats given escapable shock and 54 percent of the rats given no shock." The clear implication of the study was that the im- mune systems of the rats that were more emotionally stressed were less efficient, since it is the effectiveness of the immune system that determines whether a cancer will be thrown off or not. If this is the case with rats, imag- ine how much more important the emotions must be in humans. (page 185)”

PsychologyHealthImmune System
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“Ultimately, body liberation is about freeing yourself from the commodification of your body, rejecting the use of your body as a tool of capitalism, and claiming your freedom. It’s about abandoning colonized ideas of acceptability and reclaiming the freedom to live your life on your terms and use your body as a vehicle for your pleasure and exploration of the world.”

HealthLiberationWellnessDecolonization
Book:Decolonizing Wellness
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“In short, anything that promotes a sense of isolation leads to chronic stress and, often, to illnesses like heart disease. Conversely, anything that leads to real intimacy and feelings of connection can be healing in the real sense of the word: to bring together, to make whole.”

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Book:Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease: The Only System Scientifically Proven to Reverse Heart Disease Without Drugs or Surgery
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