Psychology and health problems

Psychology and Health Problems

PSYCHOLGY and HEALTH PROBLEMS

Multi-factorial medical diagnosis requires identifying the cause or causes of symptoms from the interrelationship between several different factors: biological sources, behavioral issues, personality and socio-cultural contributors, and environmental factors, which includes both internal and external stressors. Many times, illness is caused by more than one factor, or by the specific combinations of several particular factors.

Illness can result from biological predisposition alone, or only when certain biological traits are combined with external factors, or only when triggered by a simultaneous triad of biological predisposition, environmental conditions, and behavior.

Sometimes, psychological causes that are strictly internal manifest themselves as definite physical symptoms, indistinguishable from the same symptoms when caused by genuine biological, behavioral, or environmental. Hysterical blindness, for just one example, results in the same symptoms as blindness caused by disease or structural abnormality, except that the disease mechanism is entirely different. In his 1982 biography, Luciano Pavoratti described once abandoning his art out of anxiety and frustration and because of polyps on his vocal chords. According to him, as soon as he had made up his mind to give up singing opera, the polyps disappeared and he finally found the voice whose beauty was only quieted with his recent passing. (Pavoratti, 1982).

Since 1990, traditional medical science has been emphasizing the mind-body connection more than ever, particularly in the case of conditions that, if left untreated, continually affect quality of life or those that are associated with high morbidity.

Migraine Headache is an example of the former; Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) is an example of the latter. Migraine Headache:

Migraine headaches affect as many as 28 million Americans, accounting for a tremendous amount of suffering as well as thousands of lost productivity hours. The debilitating symptoms include intense physical pain, extreme photosensitivity, loss of appetite, nausea, and vomiting. While migraine headaches share many of those symptoms with tension headaches, their etiology differs substantially. Tension headaches are circulatory-based, resulting from local muscle ischemia. Migraines have been linked to the sudden constriction of a single blood vessel in the brain (Sarno, 1998) Only migraines are preceded by visual disturbances that signal their onset in advance.

Migraine headache can be triggered by a variety of external factors, such as bright lights or changes in barometric pressure, as well as behavioral factors, such as eating monosodium glutamate (MSG), and exposure to pollen. According to studies such as conducted by Hassinger (1999), psychology may also play an important role. In that study, women who suffer from migraines were determined to be much more likely than women who did not suffer from migraines to maintain more self-critical attitudes, and to magnify negative perceptions, as well as to be less inclined to solicit support from others.

Dr. John Sarno describes his own experience with the link between psychological factors, in particular, repressed anger and hostility, in the onset of migraine headaches.

According to Sarno, he suffered from migraines for six years at a time when his medical responsibilities and family life caused him a great deal of stress. After reading about the possible connection between repressed anger and migraines, he began focusing on conscious recognition of possible sources of his anger whenever he experienced the visual disturbances that normally precipitated his own migraines. To his surprise, his migraines never again materialized, even though he still experiences the visual disturbances to this day (Sarno, 1998).

Coronary Heart Disease:

Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) is the number one medical cause of death in the United States. Certainly, many physical factors contribute to the incidence of coronary blockages, including family medical history, high blood pressure, natural levels of hormone and cholesterol production, obesity, and smoking. In 1959, Friedman and Rosenman first suggested the link between psychological issues and the development of heart disease. In their book, Type a Behavior and Your Heart, they defined certain types of mental responses as contributing factors in coronary arteriosclerosis. Those factors included workaholism, aggressiveness, competitiveness, and quickness to anger.