A month later, feedback is still coming in to an article I wrote about Dr. John Sarno’s approach to banishing pain. Writing this article was an interesting experience. First, there was the great responsibility not only to provide accurate information to my readers, but also to avoid steering them away from seeking competent medical counsel.

But this piece wasn’t only conveying important information to readers; it also provided an awareness of the mind-body connection that the TMS approach sees as an essential part of the cure. Many who’ve been helped by this approach attest that just attending Dr. Sarno’s lectures or reading one of his books punctured the illusion that their pain had a purely physiological source rather than being rooted in unexpressed emotional stress, and that awareness itself was the entire cure. And perhaps, for some, reading this article had the same effect.

While writing this piece, I found new meaning in the words of the Mi Shebeirach recited for the sick, “refuas hanefesh u’refuas haguf,” which we say even when their illness seems to be a purely physical one. Healing of the soul, it seems, is integral to, and even precedes, the healing of the body.

One rav, for example, sent me an email describing an Erev Pesach 25 years ago when he experienced full-blown, debilitating back spasms and took enough pain medication to cause him to miss fulfilling mitzvas matzah that night. “Then someone showed me the Sarno book, and as soon as I read and absorbed the principle of the mind-body link, the pain began to subside, and by the end of Pesach it was gone. Whenever there have been hints of the pain returning, I’d review the principle and the pain went away within a few days.”

Another reader, echoing the idea that “the real cure was awareness,” adds that “you don’t necessarily have to ‘work through your issues,’ nor does this necessarily mean that you have deep, psychological issues. All of us suffer from normal stress from regular everyday life. All you need to do is be aware that this is your body’s response to stress.” By the same token, Chani Juravel (Spring Valley, NY) makes the important point that this experience isn’t universal, and that “for some just the knowledge of the theory is enough, but deeper work on the repressed issues is needed by others.”

That work might involve therapy, but at a minimum, as Ruth Krausz (Denver, CO) writes, one needs a helpful, encouraging friend: “After seeing Dr. Sarno twice and attending his group sessions, I left with a study guide in my hand. There was work to be done…. I was lucky enough to find a friend who was healed from chronic fatigue through Dr. Sarno, who walked me through the steps of the study guide and the twice-daily work I needed to do. She called me daily and encouraged me not to give up, explaining that it takes time for the unconscious mind to get the message that you are aware of your emotions and don’t need the distraction of physical pain. After three and a half weeks of doing the necessary work, my chronic, debilitating shoulder and neck pain dissipated, never to return.”

I BEGAN TO PONDER some of the obvious spiritual subtexts while working on this article. The notion, for example, that the physical reality of bodily pain could be rooted in a preexisting psychological reality of emotional anxiety so clearly parallels the basic Jewish axiom that there’s a causal linkage between the underlying spiritual reality and the ensuing physical one.

And it follows that if we wish to banish pains both large and small, whether personal yissurim or national tragedies, we need an awareness of that causal relationship between our spiritual state and our physical troubles. We call that teshuvah.

One morning during my work on this piece, I turned on my laptop but nothing happened. Instead of the familiar Start menu appearing, there was only a faint glow on an otherwise blank screen. I pushed every possible button and rebooted repeatedly, while I began to sense a faintly desperate feeling welling up. I got my tech support person on the phone and, unable to help me by phone, he recommended bringing the machine in to his Boro Park office, which would have cost me time I could ill afford that day.

I cleared my mind and concentrated on a simple truth: My computer problem was not “real.” The singular reality of this predicament was that at this moment, HaKadosh Baruch Hu wanted things to be this way. I absorbed that reality.

And then, I calmly turned my computer on, and it started right up. All was well. When I told my wife the good news, I put it this way: “I just did Sarno on my laptop.” Faced with the pain of having to waste precious time getting my computer fixed, I had chosen to pierce the veil and go beyond the source of the problem, to the Source.

In the article, therapist Rabbi Alon Gul discusses the very common phenomenon of burnout and the fact that a leading cause for it is perfectionism, which in turn is based on an illusory sense of control. He observes that

a perfectionist feels bad when things he believes are in his control go wrong — like getting angry…. But in the moment of anger, he can’t control that. What he can control is doing the work needed over time not to get so angry. But instead people repress their anger and end up feeling it as physical pain somewhere in the body.

He identifies the same dynamic at work in the yeshivah setting, where a talmid with perfectionistic tendencies may suppress anger at himself for his inability to do the impossible, such as not wasting any time at all or grasping everything he learns. But there’s a name for the belief in one’s ability to control such things: denial of the reality of Hashem’s control. Perfectionism isn’t just psychologically toxic — it’s at odds with basic Jewish belief. Put simply, it’s the flip side of bitachon.

Rabbi Gul told me he once went to a certain yeshivah and placed his book Overcoming Burnout out for sale in the lobby as booksellers often did. He left for two hours and when he returned, the yeshivah’s mashgiach told him the books had been put in a closet because they couldn’t be sold there.

Rabbi Gul apologized, but suggested it ought to be available for any boys whom it might benefit. The mashgiach responded that no bochurim there suffered from burnout, to which Rabbi Gul replied, “It’s nothing about this yeshivah. This is something perfectionists sometimes suffer from, so isn’t it possible it might be useful to someone here?” The response was quite firm: “No, everyone here is happy, baruch Hashem, and the learning is very good.” But, Rabbi Gul says, as he was leaving, two boys approached him to buy the book, telling him they had the symptoms it described.

Perhaps if more boys there had read the book, they’d have had the tools needed to share with the mashgiach what they were experiencing.

Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 746. Eytan Kobre may be contacted directly at kobre@mishpacha.com