"Psychosomatics" Is Not What You Just Thought! About Masks Of "psychosomatics", Norm And Pathology

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

From the reaction of some readers to my notes, I realized that many understand "psychosomatics" in no other way than a collective image of stories that "all diseases are from the brain." However, it is not. To explain, I have grouped my most frequent answers to questions about "psychosomatics", but the article turned out to be semantically overwhelming. I had no choice but to generalize in meaning and simplify classical descriptions and terms by adding live examples that many of you have heard. Thus, I save only the key concepts so that those who wish can find more accurate information on them, and I translate the text itself into the plane of the public. At least, I see him like that;)

So, the most important thing, the first and unexpected for many revelation is that the term "psychosomatics" (ψυχή - soul and σῶΜα - body) itself does not have any prefixes indicating pathology. "Psychosomatics" is nothing more than the interconnection of the mental with the bodily. And that's all)

Not many people know, but, along with pathological, there is the concept of normal (healthy) psychosomatics. It is this that translates "psychosomatics" into the field of science, since makes it possible to trace interdependence, feedback, outcome, etc. Those. it is impossible to know that something is a pathology without understanding how it should be normal !

Normal (healthy) psychosomatics

She is also "psychological psychosomatics" or "somatopsychology". This is the area of knowledge that almost any psychologist possesses. If you do not go into the essence of neurophysiology, as elementary psychosomatic processes, then psychologists also know it in the key of constitutional theories of personality.

As we know, even in ancient times, philosophers noted certain connections and patterns in the behavior and character of people with a particular physique, appearance. Today, such knowledge not only has the character of "marking", but helps a person to understand and accept himself and those around him, as they are, and not to build his life, looking at imaginary ideals. Because no matter how hard we try, some of the physical and mental processes and inclinations are inherent in us by nature and cannot be changed (as, for example, we cannot influence the color of our eyes and the width of our shoulders, so we cannot get rid of some character traits that directly depend on the individual characteristics of the nervous system). Such knowledge is both a solution and prevention of many psychological problems.

In addition to the constitutional theories of personality proper, many psychological techniques are built precisely on the principle of normal psychosomatics. For example, when we apply a series of balancing / unbalancing exercises to improve thinking, memory, etc. We say, "as the brain instructs the body to perform specific actions, so a series of actions stimulates certain areas of the brain." Or another example - exercises for structuring space, leading to the expansion of consciousness. Those. when we organize our work according to a certain algorithm, schedule, separating the main from the secondary, we automatically learn to recognize our feelings, thoughts, etc.

Even elementary hobbies such as knitting, wood carving, playing musical instruments, etc., all this, through action, develops certain psychological traits of character, personality traits. Or simply by stimulating some of the receptors, it causes certain feelings, mood, etc.

Thus, all those psychological directions that work through the study and influence of the physical on the mental and vice versa refer to normal (healthy) psychosomatics … There is no place for treatment, here there is a place for strengthening or weakening of certain psychological units, through the work of the body.

When a failure occurs in normal neurophysiological processes, we talk about psychosomatic diseases or disorders.

Pathological psychosomatics

She is also "medical psychosomatics" and "psychosomatic medicine". Pathological psychosomatics shifts the emphasis from psychology to medicine, precisely because psychology does not work independently with any pathological processes, incl. with psychopathology. The psychologist independently works only with the concept of the norm … Thus, psychosomatic disorders and diseases cannot be corrected without medical assistance.

In order not to go into the subtleties and an abundance of terms, we can say that as a rule psychosomatic disorders they call individual symptoms that do not fit into the picture of a full-fledged disease and do not indicate a breakdown of one or another organ. In medicine, they are better known as functional syndromes and conversion symptoms.

You've probably heard stories such as "his legs are paralyzed, but he is healthy, this is something mental" or "he is deaf (blind) due to nervousness, his functions will recover if he copes with the stress experienced." One of the most complex and inexplicable stories in this vein is the story of the so-called. "Phantom pain" when a person experiences real pain in a remote organ. All of these psychosomatic disorders are classified as conversion symptomswhen a person subconsciously demonstrates disorders that actually do not exist.

There are other stories, for example, about nervous stool disorders, overstrain headaches, etc. Panic attacks and various phobias, subjective sensations of "lump in the throat" or "heart presses", etc., are classified as functional syndromes … This is when some functions of the organs are disturbed, but there are no really pathological changes in the organs.

If organic pathology is excluded (the body is healthy), psychosomatic disorders lend themselves well to psychocorrection. But first they must be differentiated, i.e. medical examination should confirm the mental basis of such conditions, and not the physical one.

TO psychosomatic the same diseases include actually those diseases that manifest themselves in the disruption of the functioning of organs and systems, and in which, thanks to long-term research, an accompanying psychological factor has been discovered. Those. when specific changes have occurred in the organs and the cause of these changes is some kind of psychological problem. It is classified as proper psychosomatosis, and in fact there are not so many of them.

First of all, this is the classic seven: bronchial asthma, neurodermatitis, ulcerative colitis, essential hypertension, rheumatoid arthritis, gastric ulcer and duodenal ulcer.

As a result of more modern studies, psychosomatosis began to include coronary heart disease, psychosomatic thyrotoxicosis, diabetes mellitus, obesity, sciatica, migraine, intestinal colic and irritable bowel syndrome, gallbladder dyskinesia and pancreatitis, vitiligo and psoriasis, and infertility (if there is no organic / functional pathology).

The causes of psychosomatic pathology

Over the years of studying these phenomena, many authors, representatives of different professions, considered the causes of psychosomatic pathology in the context of their specialties. Therefore, in the psychosomatic approach, there are three directions, psychocentric, somatocentric and theosophical. As you probably already guessed, each of them lays in the basis of pathology either a bodily cause, or a psychological, or "spiritual".

Somatocentric approach offers such interrelated theories as:

"Stress factor theory", when we say that strong psychological experiences, including positive, cause this or that psychosomatic pathology.

"Immune theory", where the cause of psychosomatic pathology is a decrease in immunity due to stress experienced by a person. For example, we experienced a long tension before passing an exam or report at work, and as a result, our immunity weakened and we easily caught some kind of virus.

"Hormonal theory". When we talk about the fact that certain hormones, accumulating, disrupt the work of specific organs. For example, an excess of adrenaline leads to heart disease, etc.

By combining these three theories and putting something in the foreground, we get different violations and different theories explaining them)

We also refer directly to the somatocentric approach to injuries and disruption of the work of certain organs, which lead to psychosomatic pathology. For example, when a person is sick for a long time or is disabled, has undergone surgery or suffers from an incurable or fatal disease, this not only leaves an imprint on the development of certain character traits, but also leads to the development of depression and other psychosomatic disorders.

Psychocentric the same approach at the basis of diseases considers psychological causes. For the most part, all of them can be reduced to:

"The work of the defense mechanisms of the psyche", in particular, repression. For example, a woman who suffered violence in childhood can forget about it, but her diseases will in every possible way interfere with a normal sexual life with her husband. Diseases in this case will not necessarily be related to gynecological.

"Secondary benefit", when the same tooth can suddenly ache and become a reason for canceling a meeting with a person you don't want to meet, but it is also inconvenient to refuse. The child may get sick before the test. Sometimes even very complex diseases are unconsciously intensified and "retained" by patients in order to receive benefits and compensations from the state, etc.

"Educated (inherited) character traits" that provoke certain diseases. We can refer to this as "a psychological portrait of a person with" gastric ulcer ", etc. we do not know what exactly the reasons for this or that person provoke the development of this ulcer, but we know that often such people show the traits of perfectionism.

Theosophical approach, religious and / or esoteric.

Examines the cause of psychosomatic pathology, through the prism of a lesson, experience, punishment, sign, karma, etc. This approach is based on a certain belief system, and can go against the scientific approach and complicate the process of healing and recovery.

The main problem with this approach is that it can neither be proven nor disproved.

If, for example, a person is depressed and improves with antidepressants, we can confirm that the hormonal theory works. If a person discovers a secondary benefit or remembers a repressed experience, works through them and the symptom / syndrome disappears, we confirm that the cause of the disease was a psychoemotional disorder.

Each of these processes works in the opposite direction. In laboratory conditions, we can cause certain stresses in animals, which as a result contributes to the development of specific diseases in them. (A change in the experimental situation leads to a change in the result - different incentives - various diseases).

In the case of the spiritual side of the issue, we cannot confirm whether in fact there is a certain karma (lesson, task, message) or not, whether the disease is its consequence or not, whether the karmic task is considered solved, if the symptom has disappeared and whether it guarantees that he will not appear in the future or not. Experimentally, we cannot provoke a disease and it is also impossible to reliably find out how this happens in fact. Therefore, this approach is focused exclusively on a person's faith, and it makes sense to be used in cases where it does not deny or prohibit medical support (including examination, treatment, including surgery).

Concomitant or borderline psychosomatic pathology

Claimed as a disguised psychosomatics, etc.

In psychotherapy, there are a number of areas that go into an independent area. I will write about them in more detail separately, but in this case I just want to indicate that many do not correlate with psychosomatic pathology such problems as sexual disorders, grief and anticipatory grief, eating disorders, neurotic disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic attacks, depression, etc.

In fact, in addition to the psychosomatic basis of their occurrence, it is the combination of physical and psychological methods of influence that makes it possible to correct them effectively.

First of all, with this note I would like to show the diversity of the psychosomatic approach. The more we talk about healthy psychosomatics and psychosomatic disorders, the more we will understand that the well-known psychosomatosis is just a “drop in the ocean”, they are not, familiar to many, a synonym for “psychosomatics” and in the field of psychosomatic science they occupy much less space than most people imagine.

At the same time, other aspects of psychosomatic science, on the contrary, remind us that the relationship of the physical with the mental is constantly present, and for the harmonious development of the personality, one does not need to wait for any pathologies in order to develop and pay quality attention not only to psychological self-development, but and maintaining the body. It is important to remember that not only "meditation" is needed, but also sports, good nutrition, sleep and rest, that psychological problems arise not only from "wrong thoughts", but also from lack of physical activity, that mental development of children occurs not only through learning, but also through learning, etc.

And of course, once again, returning to the issue of psychosomatic pathology, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that psychosomatic disorders and diseases cannot be recognized, differentiated and corrected without medical assistance. Because only normal (healthy) psychosomatics lies independently in the field of psychology.