Everyone knows that our bad mood can significantly slow down the recovery process. But few people think that the connection between stress caused by bad thoughts and diseases (psychosomatic disorders) is much closer. And meanwhile, the concept of "psychosomatics" was introduced almost 200 years ago into scientific usage, although it has not been possible to unambiguously interpret it yet.
Symptoms of psychosomatic disorders
Influence of psychological factors on the formation and course of various diseases is engaged in psychosomatics - a direction in psychology and medicine. A psychosomatic personality disorder refers to those whose causes are more relevant to human thought processes than to any physiological states. The need for such a direction is caused by the following circumstance: if the medical equipment could not detect the physical cause of the patient's ailment, this should mean the absence of the disease. That is, such a person or a simulator, or the owner of a mental disorder. But there are a lot of cases when both options are wrong, in this case, and think about the classification of the disease, as one of the psychosomatic disorders. This can happen if the cause of the disease is anxiety, guilt, anger, depression , protracted conflicts or long-term stress.
Diagnosis of psychosomatic disorders is difficult due to symptoms that mimic the signs of other diseases. For example, pain in the heart can mimic angina, and unpleasant sensations in the abdomen will cause concern about the problems of the digestive system. True, a characteristic feature of psychosomatic disorder will be a worsening of the state against the backdrop of nervous shocks.
Classification of psychosomatic disorders
- Conversion syndrome is an expression of a neurotic conflict without pathology of organs and tissues. Examples include hysterical paralysis, vomiting, psychogenic deafness, painful sensations.
- Functional psychosomatic syndrome. Usually accompanies neuroses, there are violations in the functions of organs. For example, migraine or vegetovascular dystonia.
- Organic psychosomatic disorders. They are the primary bodily reaction to experiences, characterized by tissue pathology and impaired function. This includes peptic ulcer and colitis, rheumatoid arthritis, bronchial asthma and hypertension .
- Psychosomatic disorders, which are dependent on the characteristics of the emotional response of the individual. A characteristic example is the propensity to injury, alcoholism, drug addiction, overeating.
Causes of psychosomatic disorders
In psychology, it is customary to single out 8 sources of development of such disorders.
- Conditional benefit . For example, a person does not want to do something to the grinding of teeth, and he discovers that you can get rid of an unpleasant duty if you get sick. It is not profitable for him to recover from this point of view, since then one has to work.
- Internal conflict . The presence of two opposite desires, which are equally important for a person.
- Suggestion . If in childhood the child was often told that he was a fool, sickly and weak, he would transfer this behavior to adulthood.
- Feelings of guilt . Each has its own rules of conduct, and if they are violated, unconscious punishment will immediately follow.
- Self-expression . Constant experiences with the statements "I have a pain for her heart" can lead to real
problems with this body. - Imitation . Striving for an unattainable ideal can lead to the fact that a person is constantly in a "strange skin", and this causes suffering.
- Psychological trauma . Usually this experience refers to the childhood period, and the consequences are invariably persecuted in adulthood.
- Emotional reaction to severe events in life . For example, loss of a loved one, forced relocation or loss of work.
Summarizing all the reasons, we can say that any of the types of psychosomatic disorders is caused by the inability to express the nervous tension that arises, which is reflected in the bodily level.