What makes you hurt? Causes of psychosomatic reactions

But sometimes the doctor throws up his hands and says he can’t help. That you need to go to a psychologist or psychotherapist because your illness is psychosomatic.

Sometimes this news can cause indignation: why doesn’t he want to treat me?! What kind of stupid idea is this about a psychologist?!

But perhaps you have already guessed the psychological nature of your pain or discomfort, drawing parallels between the onset or exacerbation of symptoms and certain events and emotions in your life.

Let’s try to understand what psychosomatics is, what bodily reactions can originate in psychological problems, and how they can develop into psychosomatic diseases.

The term “psychosomatic” originates from two Greek words: ψυχή (psyche, soul) and σῶμα (soma, body). There is a deep connection between the processes taking place in our body and in our soul. The simplest examples show the connection between mind and body:

• A student goes to an important exam and accidentally meets a girl he likes on the street. Quite involuntarily, his face turns red with embarrassment.
• He enters the institute and his heart starts beating faster – the hour of “X” is coming soon. We urgently need to go to the toilet – the “bear disease” begins from excitement – diarrhea.
• He’s in the audience now. It’s time to pull the ticket. He’s so worried that his heart is trying to jump out of his chest.
• And so he goes to answer. The fear is so strong that his breathing becomes ragged, it is difficult for him to speak, and his palms become wet.
• The student spends several hours waiting for the assessment. He can’t eat, “a piece won’t fit in his throat.” He feels sick.
• The rating is good, our guy is pleased with himself. He comes home and… he can’t relax, his head aches painfully from the strain, he goes to bed.
• The morning after the exam, he gets up in a great mood and is perfectly healthy.

The described reactions are very common, but, fortunately, not all occur at the same time. The more a person is inclined to react with his body to what is happening in his life, the greater his chance (in the case of certain psychological difficulties) to face not individual brief symptoms, but a longer and more painful process that can develop into a psychosomatic illness.

The Internet is full of tables listing psychosomatic illnesses and their interpretations. It makes sense to treat them with a certain degree of criticism. Stupid (and most importantly, dangerous) consider any somatic (bodily) diseases only as a manifestation of psychological problems. It is extremely important to establish the cause of the symptoms and, if the cause is organic, try to eliminate it as quickly and effectively as possible with the help of a doctor. However, as already mentioned, sometimes doctors do not find the physical causes of disturbing symptoms. And either they just throw up their hands, or they recommend contacting a psychologist or a psychotherapist.

Here is an approximate list of problems that in some cases may be of a psychological nature.:

• headaches, migraines
• stomach pain (gastritis), intestinal problems (diarrhea, constipation, indigestion)
• certain breathing problems
• tics, twitching
• muscle cramps and pains in the abdomen, chest, pelvic region, extremities
• allergies, some skin problems
• some hormonal problems, some types of infertility
• potency problems, frigidity, vaginismus
• obesity or extremely low weight (caused by overeating, bulemia, anorexia)

If the diagnosis is clear and the causes of the symptoms are understood as psychosomatic, this does not mean that you can give up on everything. First of all, it really hurts. And the symptoms ruin your existence, limit you, or just prevent you from enjoying life. Secondly, pain of psychological origin triggers a certain mechanism in the body, which in the future may lead to the formation of psychosomatic diseases accompanied by real somatic symptoms (such as gastritis caused by psychological causes, may develop into a completely organic ulcer).

A psychologist or psychotherapist helps to find the causes that led to the formation of disturbing physical manifestations, and deal with them. The causes of psychosomatic reactions can be grouped into several main groups (using the classification of psychologist Leslie Lecron):

1. Conflict

Sometimes it can be a conflict with a certain person. But more often, an internal conflict between different parts of the personality leads to the formation of a psychosomatic symptom. Usually one of these parts is conscious, and the other is hidden in the unconscious. The struggle between two opposing desires or tendencies consumes a lot of energy. It can lead to a conditional victory of one of the parts. But then the second part begins a “guerrilla war”, a sign of which may be psychosomatic symptoms.

Example:

Irina left her hometown and went to university in the capital. In recent years, she suffered from a mild form of allergies at home, but in Moscow she was not bothered by allergies. When her mother came to visit her during the summer holidays, the allergy symptoms reappeared. Perhaps something was blooming in Moscow at that moment? The following year, the situation repeated itself (the ill-fated flowers again?). The suspicion of the psychosomatic nature of this allergy appeared at the moment when Mom arrived again, but this time in November. And the allergy appeared again. Mom left, but the allergy didn’t stop. Irina turned first to an allergist, and then (when the cause of the allergy was not found) to a psychologist.

In the process of psychotherapy, two opposing tendencies are revealed. In this example, this is, on the one hand, the desire to see her mother and communicate with her, as well as to be a good daughter, and, on the other hand, the suppressed irritation and anger accumulated by Irina in a conflict relationship with her mother. At the level of consciousness, only the first part was present – an outwardly good relationship. The second was not realized, expressed only in allergic reactions at home and during mother’s visits to Moscow.

The task of psychotherapy is to make both parts conscious and, further, to enable this conflict to be resolved. If there is no conflict, there will be no symptom.

2. Body language

In our speech, phrases that use phrases related to the body are quite common. We use them to figuratively describe the situations in which we find ourselves.

Examples: “he’s sitting on my neck”, “she’s sitting in my liver”, “they don’t let me breathe freely”, “this is one continuous headache”, “I can’t digest him”, “because of this, my heart is not in the right place”, “my hands are tied””I can’t go forward right now.”..

In some situations, we come across the fact that our body physically reflects the condition that could be expressed by one of these phrases: a certain organ hurts, it is difficult to breathe, migraines occur, the gastrointestinal tract is disrupted… In the process of psychotherapy, we “translate” body language into the language of emotions and look for a more effective way (than the formation of a physical symptom) to resolve the situation that causes these emotions.

3. Motivation

Another name is “conditional benefit”.

This category includes those kinds of health problems that bring a certain conditional benefit to their owner. It should be understood that the formation of a symptom occurs on an unconscious level, this is not a deception or simulation. The symptom is real. But it “serves” some specific purpose.

Example:

Sasha is a fifth grade student. He has a crucial math test tomorrow. He’s been preparing all evening, but he’s still not at all sure that he’ll write the test well. In the morning, he has a high fever, although there are no other symptoms. Mom decides to leave him at home. In the evening, the temperature passes and the next day Sasha goes to school, by “lucky chance” avoiding the test.

When the symptoms resulting from such a mechanism persist for a long time, they begin to significantly limit a person’s life. But this is already happening in all areas of life, not just in the one that the symptom arose to avoid. Since it arises completely unconsciously and causes completely real suffering, a person finds himself in a kind of trap of his obliging subconscious. The way out of this state is to determine the motivation for the occurrence of such a symptom.

4. Past experience

Sometimes the cause of the disease is a traumatic experience of the past, more often it is a difficult childhood experience. It can be an episode or a long-term effect that, although it happened a long time ago, continues to affect a person in the present. This experience is imprinted on the body. And he’s waiting for a way to recycle it.

Example:

Oleg is seeking psychotherapy, he is experiencing back pain. Oleg has a great family and a good job. Today’s life is marred by only one thing – a bad back. Doctors’ examinations do not bring results – a healthy spine, a normal muscular corset… And my back hurts. In the course of his work, although not immediately, it turns out that he was seriously abused as a child. He recovered physically and tried very hard to forget that nightmare. But then he was never able to experience this experience on an emotional level, all the painful feelings about it remained as if isolated from the rest of life, as if removed from it. And now that everything has got better in his life, and he himself is now an adult, a strong man, this childhood experience suddenly demanded to pay tribute to him…

This is a case in which “it is impossible to remember and it is impossible to forget.” In the course of psychotherapy, there are two tasks: to identify this traumatic experience and to be able to experience and process it emotionally, using the resources of an adult and the help of a therapist.

5. Identification

A symptom may be formed as a result of identification with a person who has a similar symptom or disease. As a rule, this happens with a strong emotional attachment to this person. Often this person can die, is dying, or has already died. There is a fear of losing it, or the loss has actually already happened.

Example:

Victor began to feel pain in his heart after his father died suddenly of a heart attack. Examinations by cardiologists did not yield results: everything is organically in order, there are no abnormalities in the work of the heart. But my heart hurts. In the course of working with a psychologist, it becomes clear that heartache expresses longing for his father and helps Victor to continue to feel an inner connection with him.

When working with a psychologist in such a situation, it is necessary to identify the source of identification and understand the role of pain. It is important that a person suffering from a “borrowed” symptom strengthens his understanding of himself as a separate subject, is able to cope with loss (or fear of loss), and is able to find a healthier way to stay in touch with a sick person or retain the image of the deceased in his memory.

6. Suggestion

Sometimes there are peculiar suggestible symptoms. This happens when the idea of one’s own illness is accepted by a person on an unconscious level automatically, i.e. without criticism. Voluntarily or involuntarily, people with great authority or who happen to be nearby at a time of special emotional intensity can inspire a symptom. A classic example is the suggestion of a symptom to a child by particularly anxious and suspicious parents who constantly emphasize the poor health of their offspring. But here’s another example.:

Example:

Eleanor was interested in ESP, magic, and the occult. When she found out that a well-known folk healer was coming to her small town in two months, she took the exclusive opportunity to make an appointment with him for a very expensive individual appointment. Two months flew by waiting for a miracle. And finally it happened, Eleanor listens with trepidation to the words of the healer, who “shines through” her body. He says that she has a weak pancreas, and she can make herself felt at any moment. Oh, how the healer was right! The very next day, something tingled in Eleanor’s side, exactly where she thought her pancreas was.

In this case, it may help to understand how and as a result of whose words the symptom was formed.

7. Self-punishment

In some cases, the psychosomatic symptom acts as an unconscious self-punishment. This punishment is associated with real, and more often imaginary, guilt that torments a person. Self-punishment makes it easier to experience guilt, but it can make life much more difficult.

Example:

One day Oksana got very angry with her three-year-old son: when he came from his grandmother, he said that he no longer loved his mother, and all day he refused to comply with her requests, bullied, threw toys and food, defiantly ignoring her. In the end, feeling powerless, annoyed with the child, resentment for herself and anger at her grandmother, after another hooliganism by her son, she swung at him and hit the chair next to her with her hand. After a while, first the hand began to go numb, and then the whole arm, as a result, the hand began to obey the mistress poorly. As time passed, Oksana had already learned how to do household chores with one hand, but there were no improvements. Since Oksana assumed a connection between the episode with anger at her son and the numbness of her hand, she sought counseling from a psychologist.

What can a specialist do in this case? To help the client determine that her symptom is self-punishment for wanting to hit a child. Although she actually restrained herself and did not hit her son, she is punishing herself for having the desire to hit the child, for how much anger she felt at that moment. There was also a sense of guilt for sending her son to her mother-in-law for the weekend, and guilt towards her mother-in-law, whom she also began to get angry at after the child’s statement that he was better off with his grandmother. Oksana considered all these feelings unacceptable for a good mother and daughter-in-law.

In cases of unconscious self-punishment, determining what exactly a person is punishing himself for can be of great help. Which part of his guilt actually took place and caused real damage to others, and which is rather purely psychological (guilt for desires, feelings, thoughts, fantasies).

Self-punishment can also be the underlying cause of injuries: experiencing a deep unconscious sense of guilt, a person in a situation of danger does not instinctively try to avoid it: he accepts as a well-deserved punishment an object falling from above, or a door pinching his hand, or a car passing too close to him…

There is one common feature of most people who tend to react physically to psychological problems. They often have difficulty expressing their feelings, feelings, and experiences in words. It’s easier for them to keep everything to themselves than to share it with someone. This is often due to the way of life of the family where they grew up, and where it was not customary to talk about their feelings. Having no experience of expression, it can be difficult for such people to determine within themselves exactly what feelings they are experiencing, to separate some feelings from others. And in adulthood, they don’t find the words to express what’s on their mind. Then the body begins to “speak”…

* As examples, the article provides typical situations when contacting a psychoanalyst.

Source: psychoanalitiki.ru (The author is psychologist-psychoanalyst Natalia Popova)