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Last updated: Wed, Aug 14, 2024
In 1962, a Doctor Sidney Cobb published an article in “Arthritis and Rheumatism” in which he asserted that angry men who repressed their hostility were especially prone to arthritis.1 More recently, Dr. J. E. Sarno has sold millions of books in which he resurrects the Freudian concept of a psychosomatic illness. According to Dr. Sarno, much of modern disease, especially painful diseases without an obvious cause, are the result of “repressed rage.” Dr. Sarno also believes that sufferers must accept this idea to make such pain disappear.
The idea that chronic pains are the result of hidden psychic causes is a very old one. The idea has had increasingly fewer syndromes to apply to as medical technology has advanced and organic cures have been discovered. Dr. Sarno's theories are discussed in Freudian Theories. See also Somatization, Psychogenic Pain, and So Forth.