There was Pauline, a promising young woman who spent her youth consumed by pain and unrelenting seizures, who slowly started to see her symptoms lessen after she began counseling with a psychiatrist.
And there was Matthew who was convinced that he had multiple sclerosis until Dr. O’Sullivan convinced him that suppressed stress might be interrupting the messages that his brain was sending to his legs. (Psychological treatment significantly improved his condition.)
There are thousands of cases like these. They’re confounding and unique and hard to diagnose — and they’re REAL.
To quote Dr. O’Sullivan, “There is no point resisting: disability for psychological reasons is all around us, it can exist and does. It is a common problem that could affect anybody — ourselves as well as the people we know and love.”
More than anything, doctors, patients, and the people who know them — heck, we ALL need to exhibit more empathy in the face of these medically unexplainable disorders and not stigmatize the suggestion that physical symptoms can have psychological origins.
We experience those kinds of symptoms all the time — when we laugh, when we blush, when we cry — so why can’t we also accept that same explanation when someone experiences a physical ailment that can’t easily be explained away by a disease?
If you know anyone in your life who has struggled with a seemingly unexplainable medical condition (or if you’ve experienced one yourself), I strongly suggest you pick up a copy of Is It All In Your Head?: True Stories of Imaginary Illness.
Dr. O’Sullivan’s message is a powerful one — YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
Her case studies and hard-won empathy will convince you of the inextricable ties between our physical and psychological selves and remind you that just because an illness doesn’t have any easy explanation, it doesn’t make it any less severe.
By Tom Burns, yourtango.com
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