Psychology/ pain

[mirabelle]

Hi! I don't know if I am asking this in the right forum... I want to know more about the psychosomatic pain and the whole psychosomatic phenomenon. I read in one of my mother's medical encyclopedia ( Larousse, a French edition, cause we speak french and my mother is a familly doctor) that one can feel pain without any "organic" symptom and... as I continue to read the definition it says that some infections are known to be psychosomatic. I am wondering why they set the boundaries there: the infections can be psychosomatic, so the mind has the power to induce an infection, but not something else?! Would you mind sharing with me what you know about this subject and the cases that you witnessed that can be related to this? Thanks!

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[emd123]

Hi! I don't know if I am asking this in the right forum... I want to know more about the psychosomatic pain and the whole psychosomatic phenomenon. I read in one of my mother's medical encyclopedia ( Larousse, a French edition, cause we speak french and my mother is a familly doctor) that one can feel pain without any "organic" symptom and... as I continue to read the definition it says that some infections are known to be psychosomatic. I am wondering why they set the boundaries there: the infections can be psychosomatic, so the mind has the power to induce an infection, but not something else?! Would you mind sharing with me what you know about this subject and the cases that you witnessed that can be related to this? Thanks!

Entire books have been written on this topic, so I'm not about to do that here. I can tell you it happens, and it's not rare. In fact, it's very common.

 

[mirabelle]

thanks for your answer ( I am not kidding, I didn't think about people writting books about it). I have a small list of books now that I can buy but for the moment, I've found this http://www.koerpertherapie-zentrum.de/downloads/PDF_English/Is_everything_psychosomatic.pdf
I can't ask you to read it all, since it is 32 pages long and you may not have the time, but the first two pages are very interesting too, so I encourage you to read it and if possible tell me what you think of, if you want.

 

[hyperalgesia]

Hi! I don't know if I am asking this in the right forum... I want to know more about the psychosomatic pain and the whole psychosomatic phenomenon. I read in one of my mother's medical encyclopedia ( Larousse, a French edition, cause we speak french and my mother is a familly doctor) that one can feel pain without any "organic" symptom and... as I continue to read the definition it says that some infections are known to be psychosomatic. I am wondering why they set the boundaries there: the infections can be psychosomatic, so the mind has the power to induce an infection, but not something else?! Would you mind sharing with me what you know about this subject and the cases that you witnessed that can be related to this? Thanks!

The biggest obstacle to this line of thinking is not the medical/scientific community but the pts themselves. Chronic pain pts usually have a trigger finger at the mere suggestion that their pain is not of a strictly physical origin. I can tell a pt in the gentlest terms that their pain is absolutely real and it must be difficult coping with it, and perhaps a pain psychologist could assist in helping with that aspect. What I get back is, "You told me it was all in my head!" I can even say, "This pain is definitely real and NOT in your head." What they hear is, "...Pain...In...Head..." and just go crazy about it. In reality, chronic pain is well known to almost always have a gigantic psychosocial/somatic component. The barrier is that pts are usually unwilling to accept this.

 

[mirabelle]

The biggest obstacle to this line of thinking is not the medical/scientific community but the pts themselves. Chronic pain pts usually have a trigger finger at the mere suggestion that their pain is not of a strictly physical origin. I can tell a pt in the gentlest terms that their pain is absolutely real and it must be difficult coping with it, and perhaps a pain psychologist could assist in helping with that aspect. What I get back is, "You told me it was all in my head!" I can even say, "This pain is definitely real and NOT in your head." What they hear is, "...Pain...In...Head..." and just go crazy about it. In reality, chronic pain is well known to almost always have a gigantic psychosocial/somatic component. The barrier is that pts are usually unwilling to accept this.

I guess it has something to do with the vocabulary! Perhaps if instead of saying psychosomatic, you say that you don't know what that is but that you are sure that it is not this or this which are serious conditions...perhaps the pts will have a different reaction. Try it once, just avoid the word psychosomatic and see.
If you have time, please read the PDF that I liked above, I really think it is worth reading. You can give me your opinion if you do!

 

[101N]

Barsky is the authority on this subject & this is his masterwork:

 

[mirabelle]

Barsky is the authority on this subject & this is his masterwork: http://www.slideshare.net/101N/functional-somaticsyndromesbarsky

Thanks for the link, I am reading it. About the pathoplasticity, my mother told me that she had a patient who came many time, each time with a different symptom and she reassured him and she said that he wasn't a difficult patient (as discribed in the text) but in contraty, he was very happy to hear, each time that he has nothing. She said that once he came saying that when he goes to the bathroom, his arm aches...something that she couldn't explain. I am aware that I can find very stupid articles in the net and I read (in part) about the sociopolitical issue of patients with psychosomatic symptoms in the link that you showed me, but I found the analysis of the article (PDF linked above) very intersting, would you mind reading pages 6 to 9 of that PDF please? ( Ok, this PDF http://www.koerpertherapie-zentrum.de/downloads/PDF_English/Is_everything_psychosomatic.pdf)
I do not say that some symptoms are real and the psychosomatic thing is all false but I mean, perhaps sometimes, some pts come with muscular pain and that can be related to a stress, anxiety or many other things, and this pain can be interpreted by the pts as an problem in the organs inside,or neer. For example, a contracted back muscle in the area of the kidney can cause pain and the pt would think that he has so problem with the kidney...or the thoracic cage mucles pain can make a pt believe that he has a heart or a lung problem. In a case like this, the doctor won't find anything but still a muscular contraction can be releived and the pt will feel much better or at least if only he knows that it is all because of that muscle contraction...he will feel more relaxed (here I am not talking about the typical pt with psychomatic illness described by Barsky). And it is easy for a doctor to feel a contracted muscle, by papation and pressure.
Again, thanks for the link that you shared...and I would like to have your answer what I mentioned above, if possible.thanks.

 

[bedrock]

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