The body is incapable of lying. It speaks of experiences, conflicts, suffering. But can they cause disease? To what extent can the past affect health? Let’s try to understand the complex relationship between the memory of the body and consciousness.
We do not exist outside the body. “Everything that happens in our mind is a reflection of what happens in our body,” said Alexander Lowen, an American psychotherapist and creator of bioenergetics. “It is impossible to treat diseases of the body without paying attention to the mental state of the patient, and it is impossible to treat mental ailments without considering the physical condition.”
50-year-old Alina had to go to the doctors: she had asthma attacks. She was diagnosed with emphysema and recommended surgical treatment. And at the appointment with a body-oriented psychotherapist, she made an amazing discovery. It turned out that the attacks were connected with an event that happened many years ago: trying to hide the pregnancy, her mother wore a tight corset.
“During psychotherapy, we can return to painful events and experiences even in the prenatal period of our life, mourn them and, thanks to tears, free ourselves from the disease,” explains psychotherapist Miriam Brouss. Accepted by some, criticized by others, body-oriented psychotherapy advances a thesis that everyone agrees on: our body can tell a deeply personal story.
Is it psychosomatic?
This sonorous term is becoming more and more popular. Some of us tend to explain everything to them, from headaches to serious illnesses. But what does this word really mean? The transformation of psychological conflict into physical symptoms, or a disease caused by many causes, among which emotional factors play a leading role?
“It’s about an internal psychic conflict,” says body-oriented psychotherapist Mark Sandomiersky. “There can be many external reasons, but the only internal one always turns out to be their common link.” The transformation of internal conflict into bodily symptoms can occur in two ways, explains the psychotherapist.
In the first case, the unconscious directly “expresses” through bodily manifestations (psychosomatic symptoms).
The less we are aware of stress or some sad event, the more they affect the body.
“For example, a person “cannot see it” – and his vision falls, or he “cannot hear it” – and then hearing decreases … – continues Mark Sandomirsky. – In the second case, the cause of the disease is the emotions “frozen” in the body, which then turn into a destructive force, causing diseases. Until recently, it was believed that there were not so many such diseases – hypertension, asthma, diabetes mellitus, hyperthyroidism, stomach ulcers, allergies …
But today it is obvious that psychosomatic factors are involved in the course of most diseases. At the same time, there are “more psychosomatic” diseases – we have already mentioned them above, and “less psychosomatic” diseases associated with organic changes in organs and tissues. But even in this case, psychosomatics still affects how the disease will proceed.
What does the body remember?
The less we are aware of stress or some sad event, the more they affect the body. The memory of the event remains in the body and is expressed through physical symptoms. This is what is called somatization. “If a person did not process the event, but only hid it from himself, forced it out, “forgotten” it, the unconscious will remind him of this with the help of bodily symptoms. It does this so that we consciously change our attitude towards what happened, draw the necessary conclusions for ourselves, stop deceiving ourselves, ”explains Mark Sandomirsky.
If the problem turns into a conflict or an impasse, a psychosomatic pathology arises – from harmless to very serious. The more we dwell on a difficult event (divorce, loss, dismissal …), the worse our body feels. The explanation of this mechanism must be sought in the past.
“Today we know how important the biology of attachment is,” emphasizes child psychologist Tatyana Bednik. – The quality of adult relationships depends on the quality of the first emotional and bodily connections. That is why we can say that the first experience determines our future life. A strong emotional impact, not experienced or not accepted, can cause anxiety, depression and lead to serious illness.
If the unconscious wants to get sick, it will definitely “find” the disease or create it.
Mark Sandomiersky adheres to the same opinion. “The way relationships develop in adulthood undoubtedly depends on early childhood experiences. The so-called scenario is also superimposed on this: a program to imitate the parent (of one’s own sex), the choice of a life partner (similar or polar opposite to the parent of the opposite sex). It is the unconscious adherence to the script laid down in childhood that often spoils the life of an adult.
However, there is no need to talk about predestination. Much depends on how we cope with our own emotions, what our environment is like, heredity … It is the combination of these reasons that can explain why different people, faced with the same unpleasant event, react differently.
“Our opportunities are highly dependent on our emotional state and our desires,” concludes Mark Sandomierzsky. – The more we want to overcome the circumstances of the past, the more likely we will succeed – and we will get out of difficult situations or illness. The opposite is equally true: if the unconscious wants to get sick, it will certainly “find” the disease or create it.”
The birth of psychosomatics
The term “psychosomatics” (from the ancient Greek “psycho” – the soul and “soma” – the body) was introduced in the XNUMXth century by the German psychiatrist Johann Christian August Heinroth, who first noticed the influence of the state of mind on the course of the disease. A little later, Jean-Martin Charcot and Sigmund Freud, who studied hysteria, determined that psychological conflicts strongly affect the state of the body and, in order to cure bodily diseases, one must first unravel the conflicts of the psyche with the help of words. Later, already in the twentieth century, psychoanalysts Georg Groddeck and Sandor Ferenczi, as well as Franz Alexander and Pierre Marty, contributed to the development of ideas about psychosomatics.