July 2009

I have been intrigued & somewhat saddened by the emergence of a particular type of woman in many popular TV shows including CSI, many other cop & legal programs. She is smart. She is skinny, tough and tense. She tends to have a cutting edge to her voice and to her language. Often she lacks much expression in her face, holding any emotion inside and exuding a – ‘don’t  mess with me’ attitude. This inner tension is mirrored in her body.

This is the sort of person I see all to often presenting as a patient with chronic pain. What also concerns me is that often young people model their behavior and attitudes on those presenting in TV & film.

This is a good example of the body/mind interaction. Pain often occurs in people who are highly motivated, task oriented & successful. These attributes [they are usually seen as positive] have a ‘dark side’.  People tend to ignore symptoms in their drive to succeed or complete the task. What they don’t appreciate is that they are on the edge of a figurative cliff and if they keep driving themselves, they turn on an amplifier in the pain system. This occurs mainly in the Thalamus, Limbic system and Cerebral cortex- in the higher centres in the brain. Once this happens  then innocuous or mild pain signals are perceived as severe pain. The pain felt is almost always far in excess of the actual damage in the body. The person now has a central pain system malfunction.

Understanding how this has occurred is vital to getting better. Understanding that the very behaviour & thought patterns which had brought the greatest success, is in fact the prime cause of the current chronic pain. Just treating the sore neck, lumbar spine, pelvis etc – is unlikely to give long lasting relief and attention needs to be given to the underlying mind/body problem.

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