| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| mk6283 |
Posted - 02/01/2012 : 18:12:12
My Letter to the Editor entitled "The lost art of psychosomatic medicine" was published online earlier today (February 1, 2012) in The British Journal of Psychiatry. Click on the link below and go down to the 4th letter from the top and click on "More..." to read it.
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/letters/
Thanks!
Best,
MK |
| 3 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| ecpasos |
Posted - 02/18/2012 : 08:26:52
"Most physicians today are simply uncomfortable diagnosing psychosomatic disease and even more uncomfortable treating it."
I am not a physician, but I can imagine how uncomfortable it must be especially if you have no training in this and you don't have support from the medical community.
Enrique |
| Tippy |
Posted - 02/02/2012 : 11:16:19
Because of that MRI and the herniated disc diagnosis I could picture a bone coming out of my back. Im thankful for the MRI because it told the doctors I didnt need surgery but the damage it did to me mentally took a long time to go away.
Stephanie |
| Back2-It |
Posted - 02/02/2012 : 06:08:26
Very good letter.
I was one of those who suffered from the authority of the MRI, which told me that I had a herniated thoracic disc. That diagnosis kept me in a state of panic for 1.5 years. Alternative medicine offered little or no relief, except to the weight of my wallet.
What this state of panic did was exasperate the already unconscious bodily reactions I was having. Increased bracing and guarding continued until my entire torso was torqued and twisted, along with paraspinal muscles that resembled railroad tracks. Unbeknownst to me, I had literally become hunched and pulled and yanked to my right side.
I really do believe that once people understand that they have a psychogenic problem, they are left in the dark as to what it does (and where it does) things to the human body, and this is what may delay many a cure. It is not enough to tell the person with the perpetual lump in their throat that it is psychogenic; they have to understand the physicality of it.
More attention has to be paid to the actual physiological reactions to a body and what could happen over a long period of stress and anxiety --i.e., among other things, muscle atrophy and extreme tonality, in the case of most back pain.
Those who focus on strictly the "mind" part of mind-body are left with half the puzzle completed.
"Bridges Freeze Before Roads" |
