There’s actually an interesting medical-history backstory to it.

The Way Out is basically a cribbed version of Dr. John Sarno’s Healing Back Pain, written in the early 90s IIRC. John Sarno was a bonafide practicing MD, but at the time he was writing, the basic notion of a mind body connection was still highly controversial. I.e., the premise that psychological stress could manifest in physical ways (like tight shoulders) wasn’t taken as a given.

Anyway, Sarno was well ahead of the curve, and while he had some good epidemiological and histological arguments, he was labeled a quack by the mainstream establishment. He had a chip on his shoulder over this, and as a result, his book has a notable new-age/anti-establishment/counterculture bend to it. Didn’t help that he overstated his case in some egregious ways (like speculatively tying TMS-related ischemia to neoplasm), even if most of it was well-argued and backed by solid clinical assertions.

Despite criticism from the old-school, the book was a marketing success, and in the ~35 years since publishing, the medical establishment has pulled a major about-face, and a big majority of PTs/orthos/related specialists now endorse the core ideas of his work.

Because Sarno actually cared about publicizing his ideas to a mass audience, the best option he had was the traditional PR route on talk shows like Oprah/Dr. Phil. NEEDLESS TO SAY: Oprah and Dr. Phil are not reliable sources of medical information, and have platformed absolute cranks, but this is a case where the a broken clock happened to be right and give an audience to someone wrongly spurned for being ahead of their time.

Same trend has carried down to the present day, but in a nutshell, that’s the reason why that book has that particular endorsement, even though it probably shouldn’t.

I read it. It immediately fixed all sorts of chronic pain I had. I literally don't give a shit about anything else, and if you have chronic pain, neither should you. You can find the book for free on the internet, and the solutions listed cost zero dollars. There is no reason not to do this, Dr Phil or no.