The ancients said: I like to be sad, I am sad about my liver, I think I will hurt my spleen, I am sad about my lungs, and I am afraid that I will hurt my kidneys. In other words, happiness, anger, sadness, joy, thinking, worry and fear are the most basic emotional experiences of human beings, but if they are too strong, they will all hurt the body.
Because of excessive pressure, cancer, bronchial asthma, hyperthyroidism, rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension, coronary heart disease, diabetes, cardiac neurosis, peptic ulcer, gastrointestinal neurosis, etc. These psychosomatic diseases that bring great pain to people are all related to psychological factors.
Studies have shown that psychological factors affect the functions of internal organs of the body through emotional activities.
Emotions can be divided into positive emotions and negative emotions. Positive emotions can promote people's life activities, improve the intensity and efficiency of physical and mental work, and keep people healthy; Negative emotions, such as anger, resentment, anxiety, depression, pain and other negative emotions, are necessary responses to adapt to the environment. However, if the intensity is too large or the duration is too long, it can lead to neurological dysfunction and endocrine disorders, which will adversely affect organ function and eventually make some organs or systems malfunction. In addition, people's personality and psychological quality also play an important role in the occurrence, development, treatment and prognosis of some diseases.
Clinical medical practice has found that the top three of the top ten causes of death of human beings have undergone tremendous changes unconsciously in the past 50 years.
Since the mid-1970s, the three diseases with the highest mortality rate are psychogenic diseases, namely cerebrovascular disease, cardiovascular disease and cancer, accounting for 22.56%, 2 1. 13% and 2 1. 1% respectively. The main reason is: psychology.
Among these three diseases, the incidence of cancer is still rising, which has become the enemy of human life. In the process of exploring the cause of cancer, people often find people with strong negative emotions, such as anxiety, anger, sadness and so on. However, if you suppress these negative emotions too much, so that you can't get reasonable relief, you will easily get cancer. At the same time, it is found that cancer has self-healing phenomenon. Cancer heals itself because the patient's immune function is greatly enhanced. The enhancement of immunity can make cancer cells stop growing and gradually be replaced by normal cells, or make cancer cells unable to adapt, thus turning cancer cells into normal cells.
The enhancement of immunity is closely related to psychological factors. Patients with depression, through complex neurohumoral regulation mechanism, will significantly reduce their own immunity, thus promoting the deterioration of cancer; Optimistic people will improve their immunity in the same way, thus inhibiting the growth of cancer cells and making cancer heal itself. This is the main reason why some people completely collapse after learning that they have cancer and die a few days later, while others have the same disease, but they can laugh it off, not only live a strong life, but also continue to make contributions to mankind!
Similarly, the influence of physical diseases on mental health is well documented.
With the development of modern medicine, more and more medical studies have proved that brain organic diseases or brain injuries can lead to a variety of disorders of higher nervous functions, which can lead to psychological abnormalities, such as cognitive impairment (memory or time orientation disorder), behavioral and emotional abnormalities (depression may be an early sign of dementia). In addition, endocrine disorders (that is, endocrine hyperfunction or hypofunction) can also lead to psychological abnormalities, and hyperthyroidism patients are easily angered (that is, easily angered).
In addition, many physical diseases will also produce many psychological problems during the onset and treatment. For example, patients with cerebral infarction and cerebral hemorrhage will have symptoms of depression and anxiety, and even mental symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions; Patients who need surgery will show fear and anxiety; Patients with infection and brain trauma will have unconsciousness and behavioral disorders. These physical diseases also have psychological and behavioral problems, so psychological intervention is also needed in the treatment process to improve the treatment effect, improve patients' confidence in overcoming the disease and treatment compliance, and shorten the rehabilitation time of the disease. In fact, in life, we have a lot of personal experience about physical health and mental health. For example, when we have a cold and a fever, we will feel that our energy is declining and we are in a bad mood. When faced with pressure, I will suffer from insomnia and depression; When you are nervous, you will feel uncomfortable in your stomach and so on. All these show that psychological factors can lead to physical symptoms, and physical discomfort can also lead to psychological problems. The two complement each other and influence each other.
The author once received a visitor with abnormal psychological behavior caused by hyperthyroidism, which showed increased mental excitability, emotional instability, allergy, impatience, irritability, insomnia, inattention and further mania. Accompanied by his family, he came for psychological counseling.
During the communication and observation, visitors were found to have signs such as rapid pulse, warm and moist skin, sweating, shaking hands, exophthalmos and goiter. At the suggestion of the author, the visitor went to the hospital for relevant examination and was diagnosed as hyperthyroidism. The author suggested that she should be given corresponding psychotherapy while treating hyperthyroidism, and achieved satisfactory results.
In May, 200010, in the process of psychological counseling for a visitor with serious "anxiety" psychological problems, the author learned that the visitor often had headache and stomach pain recently, and was diagnosed with insufficient blood supply to the brain and stomach spasm when he went to the hospital for examination. After being hospitalized for more than a month and taking medicine continuously, the effect is not obvious. Under the guidance of the hospital doctor, he came to our office for consultation. The author thinks that visitors are physiological diseases caused by psychological reasons. In view of his situation, it is suggested that he should be treated with psychological counseling while treating his physical illness, and a counseling plan has been made for him. I have done psychological counseling for 7 times, and my physical symptoms have completely disappeared. Now he has stopped taking drugs. Good results have been achieved.
In the field of psychology, mental diseases caused by brain diseases or physical diseases are usually called organic mental disorders. Common organic mental disorders include: Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, cerebrovascular disease, intracranial infection, epilepsy, disorders caused by intracranial trauma and somatic infection, internal organs diseases, endocrine disorders, nutritional and metabolic diseases, chromosomal abnormalities and other diseases. Therefore, in a regular psychological counseling institution, to receive any visitors, first of all, experienced psychological counselors need to get a preliminary understanding of the visitors through questionnaires, conversations and other ways to confirm whether they have some physical diseases that lead to psychological problems, and then determine whether they belong to the scope of psychological counseling according to the actual situation, or after the visitors need to receive relevant drugs to stabilize their physical diseases, they will receive psychological counseling under the guidance of professionals. In addition, as the family members, relatives and friends of patients, we can ask psychological counseling institutions to do an elimination check of organic mental disorders before providing formal counseling services, so as to avoid delaying treatment because of the wrong treatment plan.
It is precisely because of the close relationship between psychological factors and diseases that western developed countries have established quite advanced medical psychology and are playing an increasingly important role.
In a word, mental health and physical diseases are closely related, and they interact and influence each other. This disease is not terrible. If the disease causes psychological problems, or the disease is caused by psychological problems, it is not as easy to solve as a simple disease. Therefore, when we treat diseases with biology, we must not ignore psychotherapy. Only by treating diseases both physically and psychologically can we achieve the expected therapeutic purpose.