Psychosomatics is the direction in medicine, according to which psychological factors are considered the causes of physical diseases. Simply put, the cause of a stomach ulcer may be neurosis. And hypertensive crises are very often caused by neurogenic factors.
The term "psychosomatics" can be used in a different sense, in addition to a special look at the causes of diseases. In this case, far-fetched diseases are called psychosomatic. They can "appear" in medical students studying various diseases. In the process of training, applicants find symptoms of a particular disease - muscle tremors, pain in the solar plexus, compression in the heart, tinnitus, severe headaches, signs of damage to the endocrine glands, imaginary hypertensive crises. When acting on the psyche, trembling of the hands, pain in the stomach, false sensation of hardening of the skin can begin.
The historical roots of psychosomatics
The term "psychosomatics" arose not so long ago, but at the same time this theory is quite old. The position on the unity of soul and body was first formulated by Hippocrates in the doctrine of temperament. In his opinion, a disease is a form of a person’s reaction to his living conditions. It is from Hippocrates the belief that it is the person who needs to be treated, and not the disease.
The doctrine of temperament divides people into four types - choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine and melancholic. Hippocrates believed that the predominance of one of the fluids - yellow bile, lymph or phlegm, blood, black bile - creates a temperament.
Another ancestor of psychosomatic medicine was Sigmund Freud. He argued that a psychological conflict, squeezed out into the subconscious, breaks out in the form of a disease and creates seizures, paralysis, paresis, etc. Freud treated neurosis with the method of free association. The patient lay on the couch and talked with a psychoanalyst, spontaneously responding to questions or words of the doctor. Thus, a psychological conflict revealed itself, which was the cause of the neurosis.
Neurosis is a disease, a disorder of the nervous system as a result of exposure to factors that traumatize the psyche. There are three types of neurosis: neurasthenia, obsession, hysteria. Along with neurosis, various phobias often come.
Modern psychosomatic medicine
One of the representatives of alternative medicine, Louise Hay, in her publications gives a table of the psychosomatic significance of diseases. The allergy in this table is presented as a denial of your own strength and a sign that you can not stand someone. A lump in the throat indicates “swallowed” anger, inability to stand up for oneself, and a creative crisis. Muscle cramps reveal resistance to the new, unwillingness to move forward in life. Gastric diseases mean prolonged uncertainty, a sense of doom.
Runny nose, discharge from the nasopharynx are interpreted as pent-up crying, inner perception of oneself as a victim. Fungus - unwillingness to part with the past, outdated beliefs. Pain and a crunch in the neck means a lack of flexibility, stubbornness, unwillingness to look at the problem from the other side. Teeth symbolize decisions. Problems with wisdom teeth mean that you do not pay enough attention to laying a solid foundation for a future life. Anger, resentment, a desire to take revenge threatens with pain from spasm in the jaws clenched. The obsessive desire to bite your nails indicates self-control, hatred of one of the parents.
If a person suffers from hypertension, it means that many old emotional problems have not been resolved. If something compresses the chest, interferes with breathing, provokes asthma attacks, bronchial asthma, then there is a feeling of depression, a fear of life, a fear of breathing life in full.
Louise Hay sees the treatment of such diseases in the utterance of positive affirmations - statements that reflect a new outlook on life. For example, a serious liver disease, hepatitis, according to Louise’s teachings, from fear, anger and hatred, will go away when saying such statements: "My mind is clean and free. I forget the past and go towards the new. Everything is going well."
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