Psychosomatic illness

The traditional approach to a health problem is usually a somatic approach. Somatic meaning the cells of the body and is based on physical symptoms. For example, you are driving a car and suddenly a warning lights begins to flash showing you that your car needs oil change. Your solution is to turn that light off and keep going.

This is a common approach of mainstream medicine, which usually deals with symptoms by using a pain killer or other type of medicine that deals with the symptom rather than the problem. If you decide to simply get rid of the warning light, for how long will you be able to drive and what are the consequences of not changing the oil ?

Psychosomatic means that a physical condition is caused or greatly influenced by psychological factors.

 

Illness is a person’s way of adapting to an environment. It is a message that communicates a need for change. However, very few people interpret their illness as a form of communication or symptom of deeper problems. Instead, most people run to the doctor and get rid of the pain often having to deal with side effects and worsening their health over time. Do not ask why you got sick. Ask what for did you get sick ?

Signal to change. Illness is a period of time when one needs to unplug, reset and rethink specific parts of his or her life. What is it that the person is doing or not doing that led him or her to this condition. Illness is not a time to make a blind run to a doctor to get some pills, it is time to make changes. Shutting down pain with pills is the same thing as fixing hardware that runs bad software. It is only a matter of time until it breaks again. Remember, if you keep on doing what you do, you’ll keep on getting what you get.

 

Example: One women had frequent headache which did not go away after several courses of pain killers. However, after dealing with the headache from a different perspective, the headache was soon transformed into an insight into the patient's anger about past events and how they might be related to a current communication problem with her daughter. After working on resolving the issues with her daughter, the headache began to go away.

 

Illness is a legitimate way to avoiding something unpleasant. Illness can be a subconscious mechanism of defense. There are many situations that people would rather avoid rather than deal with.

 

Example: Unconscious skills can go back all the way to the childhood. When children get sick they get an opportunity to stay at home and not deal with school and homework. This unconscious mechanism of avoidance is learned and carried on to adulthood. Sometimes people get sick because they don't want to deal with their boss, colleagues or work in general.

 

Love, attention and warmth. When people get sick, they get attention, love and warmth from family members or friends. In the busy world that we live in, people often do not get enough attention from their loved ones. The unconscious mind uses illness as a way to get attention. As soon as the person gets sick, family members and friends give extra attention and care to the person. Although it is very comforting, it cannot go on forever because eventually people adapt to the situation and get back to their busy life. In order to regain attention, the sick gets sicker. For some people, this can turn into a constant process which makes the problem worse over time in exchange for attention. This concept is often true for seniors as they often do not get enough attention from their family members.

 

Example: A little girl who had a strong connection with her father would often get sick every time he had to go on a business trip. As soon as he would come back and spend time with her, she quickly got well.

 

Purpose crisis. There is a point in time when people begin to ask the question - What is the purpose of my life ? Unable to answer this question, some people turn their illness into their purpose in life. Everything begins to revolve around it. They attend seminars, seek gurus, test various supplements and eventually turn their illness into their lifestyle.

Example: A single man in his forties repeatedly visited doctors and other specialist. Every time he would visit the specialist, he would describe the same problem in a different way.

 

A piece of advice – if you ever develop a health problem, remember to ask these questions:

• What is the meaning of my illness?
• What is the problem trying to communicate?
• What can be changed ?
• What is the secondary gain from my illness?