Why is this sometimes confusing?
Key ideas and principles
What is Mind-Body?: Mind-Body is a term that tries to capture the true holistic element of the human experience. We are both a mind and a body. They are linked and connected. What influences one influences the other.
The Cartesian Split: Western medicine has unfortunately, for hundreds of years, de-linked the mind/brain and body. However, both modern scientific research, clinical insights, the pioneering work of John Sarno MD, and others, have begun to correct this error..
Reconnection: By understanding mind-body and utilizing the mind-body linkage, conditions that were otherwise untreatable by both conventional and alternative practitioners can be understood and solved!
Due Diligence: We always ensure appropriate work-up and testing is done. Some people suffer from both a structural issue and a mind-body issue. While we have advanced so much technologically in medicine, somewhere the human element was lost. Age-old wisdom combined with the scientific evidence from functional brain imaging (f-MRI) and other types of research have redefined our understanding of pain.
Chronification: I discuss the chronification process in more detail in my book. But chronic pain is a different condition than acute pain. Chronic is localized more in the 'emotional brain'-- the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, etc. Acute pain is more of a sensory-motor experience.