My wife had serious back issues. MRI showed multiple issues with lower discs etc...surgery was being pushed strongly. She wasn't keen because her sister's surgery had not really helped much.

She found Dr Sarno. To this day I'm not entirely on board with it...but whatever went on it worked. The surgeons looking at her MRI were totally baffled. It still showed all the issues and as one said "you shouldn't be able to even walk around without pain".

One thing Sarno says which I find interesting: he claims that the correlation between MRI imagery and pain is very weak. In other words you have people with a clean MRI who are in agony and you have people with all kinds of issues showing who are absolutely fine.