The power of the mind to affect the health of the body is illustrated by psychosomatic illnesses. When a person is subjected to stress or emotional upset, changes in the body may manifest as diseases. The terms psycho (mind) and soma (body) emphasize the connection between the mind and the body with respect to health.

Many people believe that if a person has a psychosomatic illness, he or she is imagining it, that it is "all in the mind." This is not true. The symptoms of a headache brought on by stress can be just as severe as one brought on by being hit over the head with a bat. In one case, stress has caused a change in the flow of blood through the head, and in the other case, blood vessels may have been damaged by the injury. Psychosomatic illnesses are as real as a cold brought on by a virus.

Western medicine is not well equipped to deal with psychosomatic illnesses. Although physicians can treat the symptoms, they are not well trained to help with the underlying mental states that cause the illness. On the other hand, Buddhist and Chinese medicine take the position that all sickness, to some degree, is brought on by a person's state of mind. In Western medicine, if a physician cannot find an organic cause for symptoms, the patient may be advised to see a psychologist or given a drug to mask symptoms.

This view should not be interpreted to mean that sickness is brought on just by a person's state of mind, but that our psychological state, at any time, may invite illness. In order for an emotional or mental state to change, physiology, a process called somatization must occur. Somatization refers to the occurrence of physical symptoms in a person without the presence of disease or injury that can be detected medically.

Psychological and social problems may contribute to pain, fatigue, nausea, diarrhea, sexual dysfunction, and other symptoms that are classified as somatization disorders. It is estimate that 25% to 75% of all patients who visit primary care physicians suffer from somatization disorders. These are difficult to treat, time-consuming for physicians to diagnose, and expensive for the health care system. The chief complaint is pain of long duration in several parts of the body that cannot be explained by any medical condition or injury.

The lives of that many people choose to live or are forced to live by financial or family circumstances can cause mind-body disruption that eventually produces pain and sickness. People suffering from somatization disorders are not feigning sickness; they have lost mind-body harmony to a serious degree.

Source from: Health and Wellness, Edlin, Brown.

© 2003 by AfroStaff