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Psychologically Induced Pelvic Pain

The mind is truly a powerful thing. When it comes to experiencing pain, psychologically induced pains can feel just as real as those that are actually experienced in life. The trick is being able to differentiate between the two. Once you establish that the cause of your pain has no basis in medical aliments, the only real course of action is to reprogram your mind to halt the phantom pain.

  1. Psychologically Induced Head Pain

    • A study published in the January 1991 edition of the journal "Pain" conducted by T. L. Bayer, et. al. demonstrated the incredible powers of the mind to inflict psychologically induced pain on itself. In the study, individuals were attached to an electronic stimulation (which, in actuality, did nothing) and told that it could cause headaches. Fully half of the subjects in the study reported localized head pain following "use" of the device.

    Psychologically Induced Pelvic Pain

    • Psychologically induced pelvic pain is a fairly common phenomenon. In a study conducted by Dr. Renate H. Rosenthal, Ph.D., et. al., published in the November 1984 issue of the medical journal "Psychosomatics," roughly 25 percent of patients reporting chronic pelvic pain were found to have absolutely no cause for the pain whatsoever. While this in no way indicates that you should forgo visiting your doctor, this gives you a perspective on how frequent mental causation of pain is.

    Causes

    • The original cause of developing psychologically induced pelvic pain is unknown. However, following the initial onset of "pain," natural feedback loops in the brain and nerve centers of the body create a cascading snowball effect, continuing to convince the body that it is experiencing pain even in the absence of a true underlying physiological cause.

    Treatment

    • In the "Psychosomatics" study referenced above, most individuals with phantom pain seemed to respond well to repeated assurances that there was nothing physically wrong with their bodies. Furthermore, counseling provided on the link between stress and the occurrence or enhancement of pain helped individuals so affected to mentally resolve their internal conflicts.

    Considerations

    • As counterintuitive as it may seem, psychologically induced pain is a very real problem. If you are experiencing pelvic pain and your doctor cannot determine a physiological cause, the best course of action may be to engage in daily stress relief activities such as meditation or yoga to help yourself learn to relax, undoing the imaginary pain at its source--your brain.

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