Psychosomatic disorders may appear to be purely physical but they originate in emotions that are
unconscious or dissociated from consciousness . There are hundreds of illnesses and disorders that are purely psychosomatic or have a psychosomatic component , yet it is quite astonishing that despite the prevalence of these disorders , the medical community remains in the dark about this . . . When physicians are confronted with a psychosomatic disorder they do not recognize it , or if they do , they tell the patient that it is all in the mind .
Loss and isolation can cut like a knife .
Grief or
anger can be stored in the muscles of the neck , head , back , or gastrointestinal tract , and can cause allergies to flare . The waiting rooms of primary care physicians are filled with people in very real physical distress for which no medical cause may be found . . . . Their pain may well originate in the mind or psychic pain might greatly exacerbate the pain of a physical disorder . But in any case , it is not all in the mind . It is in the mindbrainbody . It is psychosomatic ( Farber 2013 , pp . 166-7 ).
A number of years ago I got a call from Kay , a friend and neighbour . She was miserable , in almost constant pain — her back , neck , shoulders . Consultations with three orthopedic surgeons told her that she needed to have orthopedic surgery . She was instructed to go on complete bed rest and that is how she ’ d been living for the past several weeks . She hired a high school senior girl to come over at lunch time to prepare and serve her lunch and empty her bed pan . Surgery was scheduled for three weeks later .
What a terrible way to live , I said , and asked her if she had ever heard of the work of a physician named John Sarno , “ a pioneer in psychosomatic medicine in Modern Time ” and head of the Outpatient Department at the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine at New York University Medical Center . I told her that I had worked there years ago and learned a great deal about
chronic pain syndrome , how the mind can produce or exacerbate physical symptoms .