What happens to patients who go to the doctor with severe pain and undergo all possible examinations and tests, but the cause of their pain remains unclear, undiagnosed? What happens when, despite the painkillers they regularly take, the pain does not go away, but even moves throughout the body?
Then the suffering person must ask himself whether it is not psychogenic pain. This is a sensation that sufferers describe as severe pain, although their symptoms do not correspond to such pain. Because it is not related to an illness, physiological problem, organ damage or trauma. It is related to psychological and emotional factors. It is due to mental trauma, anxiety, fear, depression. It is often concentrated in the head, neck and shoulders, back, heart area.
An experienced doctor can find a connection between the location of the pain and possible causes. For example, a person with a deeply personal or intimate problem may suffer from pain in the heart area, without the heart being sick. In conversation, we often say that our heart aches for a close person who is suffering. But if we really feel pain in this state, we go to the cardiologist, and we fail to see the connection.
We are often completely turned outward, to the outside world, we analyze, criticize, make decisions. But we rarely turn inward and are unable to read the body’s signals. We often hear that some problem bothers us so much, we think about it for so long that our head hurts. Yes, behind a severe headache may lie the inability to make a decision. Often, psychogenic pain is also a way for a person to get attention, sympathy or support. But instead, such people are often called “hypochondriacs” by loved ones.
How to recognize psychogenic pain? It is:
• repeatedly recurring
• changing its localization
• not affected by standard painkillers
• combined with depressed mood, irritability and depression
• its appearance is a consequence of a stressful situation, conflict or social problem
• the sufferer constantly changes doctors and has a skeptical attitude towards drug treatment.
How is psychogenic pain diagnosed? By an experienced doctor who relies on research and excludes all causes of pain that may be rooted in the patient’s physical condition. In order to cope with such pain, a person must treat the causes of it, which are in his emotional and mental state. And this can only be done with the help of an experienced psychotherapist. Good results are achieved with the help of the technique of organ-oriented psychotherapy, when pain is a reaction to suppressed feelings. Suppressed emotions cause a reaction in the body in the form of muscle blockages, the so-called “muscle armor”.
When they are removed, a person feels tangible relief. Psychotherapy should be combined with relaxation practices, mental relaxation and anti-stress techniques. As well as with a change in lifestyle, if a person is trapped in bad habits that he justifies with stress in his daily life, for example, alcohol, drugs, addiction to cigarettes, food, video games, etc. Sports, movement in the fresh air, tourism are the most accessible “antidepressants”. Of course, antidepressants themselves are an option when it is necessary to reduce anxiety, stress and psychogenic pain itself. But it is good for them to be the last option.
For the authors of this book, psychologist Thorvald Detlefsen and doctor Rüdiger Dahlke, there is not a variety of diseases that can be treated, but a single disease – “illness”, manifested in various disease pictures. It is a sign that a person lives in tension, the symptoms of which are removed – if at all possible – by medication or surgery only temporarily. In this book you can find another perspective on diseases, their connection with the psycho-emotional state of a person. Every symptom, every pain is a sign that the soul is suffering, a sign of internal conflict and a symbol of the deep internal problems of the personality. Understanding the symptoms of various diseases – from infections and stomach disorders to rheumatism and cancer, opens a new path to health and healing, to the truth about oneself. The book is extremely useful for getting to know the true causes of the disease.
Illustrative Photo by Sora Shimazaki: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-suffering-from-a-stomach-pain-5938363/
