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With positive thinking, we can make ourselves better: healthier, stronger, happier. But we ourselves cause false illnesses. What is this phenomenon?
Everyone knows these bodily reactions: a lump in the throat before a public speech, a blush at awkwardness, tears while watching sentimental scenes in a movie. But what if the mind, against our will, causes more serious symptoms — from chronic fatigue, migraines and constant pain to real seizures and paralysis?
The neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan studied epilepsy. During her work, she was faced with the fact that every fifth patient was sure that he was suffering from this disease. There are quite a lot of such patients with psychosomatic disorders. It’s not just hypochondriacs. Imaginary patients believe in their illnesses so much that sometimes they really cannot get out of bed.
How the signs of epilepsy appeared in healthy people and what other diseases the brain «composes» she tells in the book It’s All in Your Head: Stories of Imaginary Diseases.
Self suggestion
In 1997, the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted a study that showed that 20% of people had at least six medically unexplained symptoms. Doctors distinguish two types of such disorders: somatization and somatization disorder.
- Somatization When a person has physical symptoms in response to stress or emotions. “We all somatize from time to time, this is normal. After a hard day at work, we have a headache. For example, I get dizzy when I’m worried. For others, excitement causes an increase in heart rate, ”writes O’Sullivan.
- Somatized disorder When symptoms prevent you from leading a normal life.
The author of the book describes several cases from practice:
- The patient was paralyzed on the right side of his body after he found a lump on the right side of his head and thought he had cancer;
- The young woman was blinded at night, although no damage to the optic nerve was found in her.
The cause of their symptoms was not an illness, but an attempt by the subconscious mind to keep the person safe from emotional distress.
It’s better to be sick than admit the problem
So what causes these types of physical responses? “Often there is no one reason, it is the accumulation of little things that make you feel trapped and that you cannot avoid. Sometimes illness is the best way to explain failures: the breakdown of a marriage or difficulties at work. Illness, as it were, gives a reason not to face these social difficulties. I have met people whose sadness was so deep that they could not bear it. Therefore, physical pain appeared in its place, ”the neuropathologist writes.
Reflexes don’t lie
The cause of more serious symptoms — pseudo-seizures and pseudo-paralysis, as a rule, lies in the fact that the patient has suffered a serious injury — sexual abuse or the death of a loved one. It is difficult to understand whether this is a real disease or a fictional one. Only neurologists can do this.
“If the patient complains of weakness in the legs, reflexes should be checked. For those who are actually healthy, they are normal. Reflexes are not subject to the subconscious. It helps to assess what is really going on,” writes O’Sullivan.
Patients are not always ready to admit that their disease is mythical, but it is better than suffering seriously from a serious illness.
To illustrate how ingenious but ultimately limited the subconscious mind is, she continues the story of the person with the «brain tumor» from the example above: which corresponds to the right hemisphere. But the patient missed this fact. The disease manifests itself as a disease that a person can imagine by virtue of his knowledge of it. The subconscious erroneously produces the wrong signs, because the patient does not know what they should be.
«Simulator» is easy to identify with the help of devices that record brain activity. You can’t have an EEG (electroencephalography) reading from an awake person when you’re unconscious, so that’s undeniable evidence.
I am well? Say it’s not!
If patients hear from doctors that they are healthy, and the cause of their symptoms is psychological, then they reproach the doctors for deceit and refuse to consult a psychiatrist or psychologist. Often, after the doctor’s verdict, pseudo-symptoms begin to «move» throughout the body. This phenomenon is known as the «chameleon effect» — as soon as one diagnosis is excluded, the complaint disappears, but new ailments appear. This is another form of denial of the problem.
Women are weaker
More than 70% of patients with dissociative seizures or chronic fatigue are women. The female psyche is more mobile, they are more vulnerable. Women have a hard time with stress and trauma, such as sexual abuse. They can also fall into a psychological trap, living, for example, in an unhappy marriage. Men suffer differently — they take drugs or alcohol, they fight, while women turn the pain inward, the author claims.
And although patients are not always ready to admit that their disease is mythical, it is better than seriously suffering from a serious illness. You always have the opportunity to get better.