PSYCHOSOMATIC DISORDERS II

By Juan Moisés De La Serna

Psychosomatic pathologies lead many patients to wander from a medical office to another without finding a clear diagnosis of their condition, and above all without receiving the appropriate treatment, or discovering how to identify it and what is the best treatment for each case.

Psychosomatic disorders have a complex clinical picture, are difficult to diagnose and require a global intervention in order to be treated.

This text describes these types of disorders, how they affect one's health, what their causes are, and what types of therapeutic interventions can cure them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Dec 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386906858

Book preview

Preface

Psychosomatic pathologies lead many patients to wander from a medical office to another without finding a clear diagnosis of their condition, and above all without receiving the appropriate treatment, or discovering how to identify it and what is the best treatment for each case.

Psychosomatic disorders have a complex clinical picture, are difficult to diagnose and require a global intervention in order to be treated.

This text describes these types of disorders, how they affect one's health, what their causes are, and what types of therapeutic interventions can cure them.

Index

Chapter 1. Psychosomatic Pathology

Chapter 2. Fundamentals of Psychosomatic Pathology

Chapter 3. Causes of Psychosomatic Pathologies

Chapter 4. Psychoanalysis and Psychosomatic Pathology

Chapter 5. The challenge of Psychosomatic Medicine

Chapter 6. Gastric ulcer

Chapter 7. Spastic Colitis

Chapter 8. Ulcerative colitis

Chapter 9. Asthma

Chapter 10. Vascular diseases

Chapter 11. Hypertension (high blood pressure)

Chapter 12. Migraine

Chapter 13. Traumatic habitus

Chapter 14. Diabetes insipidus

Chapter 15. Cushing's syndrome

Chapter 16. Psychosomatic sterility

Chapter 17. Anorexia nervosa

Chapter 18. Disorders related to affective deprivation in early childhood

Dedicated to my parents

Chapter 1. Psychosomatic Pathology

This second e-book contains a thorough exploration of the psychosomatic medicine field, following an introduction that clarifies what psychosomatic refers to and what are the main contributions that other disciplines brought to its support, like the similarities shared with psychoneuroimmunology, homeopathy, or alterations of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, to name just a few.

Based on all the above, we can conclude that psychosomatic pathology is a standalone domain, which refers to those diseases that have both a physical (medical) and a mental (psychological) component, and intervention over one of the two cannot be done without tackling the other also, because it would be incomplete and ineffective.  As shown in case of damage to the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, high, long-lasting levels of stress can cause damage to certain organs in the body, and even if the damaged organ is treated with medication, other organs will suffer damage if the stressful situation is maintained.

Several approaches consider psychosomatic pathologies, both from a therapeutic angle and from a more theoretical or conceptual perspective.

Regarding clinical practice, the medical intervention is the same as for any other disease, meaning that the practician will attend to the symptoms, to establish a diagnosis that will allow an appropriate treatment plan.  Similarly, as a complement, the treatment should make use of recent findings in the field of Psychology, in terms of patient care, pain management and adherence to treatment. The purpose goes further than merely improving the patient's condition. Offering a complete therapeutic intervention means to enhance his/her quality of life.

Theory has evolved a lot since the first ideas stating that mental disorders have a psychological origin. It was considered that psychological tension would reflect onto the physical body through a symbolic conversion, where the affected organ had a particular meaning, related to an unconscious, repressed trauma. Despite the fact that a displacement from psychological to physical is accepted today as a fact, the psychoanalytical theories on the origin and symbolism of psychosomatic disorders have been left behind.

Chapter 2. Fundamentals of Psychosomatic Pathology

As mentioned in the introductory chapter, the brain is the organ that integrates external and internal information. The information is brought through the peripheral nervous system (composed of a network of nerves distributed throughout the organism) to the central nervous system (from the marrow to the encephalo). The encephalo is composed of the brainstem, the cerebellum and the cerebrum, and the latter is where all information will arrive for processing. The cerebrum has two well differentiated sections: the outer region consisting of grey matter, and the inner region, composed of the forebrain (prosencephalon), which contains both the telencephalon (basal ganglia, amygdala, and hippocampus) and the diencephalon (thalamus, hypothalamus, epithalamus).

Although these structures are involved in different functions, whether it's homeostasis or to implement the instructions and the acts of will of the person, in the introductory chapter we addressed the specific relation between the three structures, when referring to the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal as an anatomical, functional model of stress. A hormonal cascade started from the hypothalamus will unleash the activation of the sympathetic nervous system, and with it, the preparation for a response to a stressful situation. Also, we have revised the consequences that persistent stress has over the health of the organism in general, and its effects on a short or long-term basis, in particular.

But these structures are not the only ones to take into account when discussing psychosomatic disorders. The limbic system is responsible for a large part of the person's psychological activity, more specifically for the emotional life which, we will see further on, it is considered the main trigger of the psychosomatic processes that lead to illness.

The limbic system is composed of:

- Thalamus, which receives all the exteroceptive information except smell, and fulfills the function of filter, discarding irrelevant information and leading the relevant information to the cortex.

- The hippocampus, which fulfills the function of creating new memory paths, and the function of spatial orientation.

- The hypothalamus, which regulates important vegetative functions, like bodily temperature, those related to intake: hunger