The Divided Mind is the crowning achievement of Dr. John E. Sarno's long and successful career as a groundbreaking medical pioneer. While his earlier books dealt almost exclusively with musculoskeletal pain disorders, here Dr. Sarno addresses the entire spectrum of psychosomatic (mind-body) disorders. In Dr. Sarno's view, the crucial interaction between the reasonable, rational, ethical, moral conscious mind and the repressed feelings of emotional pain, hurt, sadness, and anger characteristic of the unconscious mind is the basis for many mind-body disorders.
The Divided Mind traces the history of psychosomatic medicine, including Freud's crucial role as well as his failures. Most important, it describes the psychology of the human condition that is responsible for the broad range of psychosomatic illness. Dr. Sarno believes that the failure of medicine's practitioners to recognize and appropriately treat mind-body disorders has produced public health and economic problems of major proportions in the United States. One of the most interesting and important aspects of psychosomatic phenomena is the fact that knowledge and awareness of the process clearly have healing powers.