John Sarno's Healing Back Pain has inspired devotion bordering on the religious. A Seattle group dedicated to repetitive strain injuries reportedly disbanded after reading it and concluding their pain was psychosomatic. Larry David called his treatment "the closest thing to a religious experience." The book's promise: chronic pain might disappear once you understand it has no physical cause.

As Uri Bram writes in the Atoms vs Bits newsletter, the entire book boils down to three ideas. Physical pain — back, joints, headaches, stomach — might be your body distracting you from emotional problems. Realizing this can make the pain vanish.

Uri acknowledges the book works for many people while calling the writing "bad." He estimates the core argument takes 100 words, with the rest filled by rep

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