Quite often, parents are faced with the fact that neither doctors nor diagnosticians are able to establish the true cause of the child's illness. Another situation is long-term treatment that does not lead to recovery. The doctors say “it's chronic,” and they write another prescription for pills or injections. The vicious circle can be interrupted by psychosomatic medicine, which will allow to establish the true underlying causes of the disease and tell you how to cure the child.
What it is?
Psychosomatics is a direction in medicine that considers the connection between the soul and the body, the influence of mental and psychological factors on the development of certain diseases. Many great physicians have described this connection by claiming that every physical illness has a psychological root cause. Even today, many practicing doctors are sure that the patient's mood, his belief in a better outcome, and his state of mind directly affect the recovery process, for example, after a surgical operation.
This connection began to be studied most actively by doctors at the beginning of the 19th century, a great contribution to this study was made in the middle of the 20th century by doctors from the USA, Russia, and Israel. Doctors talk about psychosomatic illness today if a detailed examination of the child did not show any physical reasons that could contribute to the development of his illness. There are no reasons, but the disease is there. From the point of view of psychosomatics, ineffective treatment is also considered. If all the doctor's prescriptions are fulfilled, the drugs are taken, and the disease does not recede, then this may also be evidence of its psychosomatic origin.
Psychosomat specialists consider any disease, even acute, from the point of view of a direct connection between the soul and the body. They believe that a person has everything he needs to recover, the main thing is to realize the deep causes of the disease and take measures to eliminate them. If you express this thought in one phrase, you get the familiar statement to all - "All diseases are from the nerves."
Principles
Psychosomatics is based on several important principles that parents must know if they decide to look the true causes of your child's illness:
- Negative thoughts, anxiety, depression, fears, if they are long enough or deeply "hidden" always lead to the occurrence of certain physical diseases. If you change the way of thinking, attitudes, then the disease that did not "succumb" to medicines will go away.
- If the cause is found correctly, then the cure will not be labor.
- The human body as a whole, like each of its cells, has the ability to self-repair, regenerate. If you allow the body to do this, then the healing process will be faster.
- Any illness in a child suggests that the baby cannot be himself, that he is experiencing an internal conflict. If the situation is resolved, the disease will recede.
Who is most susceptible to psychosomatic illnesses?
The answer to this question is unambiguous - any child of any age and gender. However, most often, diseases have psychosomatic causes in children who are in periods of age crises (at 1 year old, at 3 years old, at 7 years old at 13-17 years old). The imagination of all children is very vivid and realistic, sometimes the line between fictional and real is blurred in kids. Which parent has never noticed at least once that a child who really does not want to go to kindergarten in the morning is more likely to get sick? And all because he creates the disease himself, he needs it in order not to do what he does not want so much - not to go to kindergarten.
The disease is needed as a way to attract attention if little is paid to it in the family, because they communicate with a sick child more than with a healthy one, they are surrounded by care and even gifts. Illness in children is often a defense mechanism in frightening and uncertain situations, as well as a way to express your protest if the situation in the family is uncomfortable for a long time. Many parents who have survived a divorce are well aware that at the peak of their experiences and family drama, the child "just at the wrong time" began to get sick. All these are just the most elementary examples of the action of psychosomatics. There are also more complex, deep reasons hidden far in the baby's subconsciousness.
Before looking for them, you need to pay attention to the individual qualities of the child, to his character, to the manner of his response to stressful situations.
The most serious and chronic illnesses occur in children who:
- do not know how to cope with stress;
- communicate little with parents and others about their personal problems and experiences;
- are in a pessimistic mood, always waiting for an unpleasant situation or a dirty trick;
- are under the influence of total and constant parental control;
- they do not know how to rejoice, do not know how to prepare surprises and gifts for others, to give joy to others;
- are afraid not to meet the exaggerated requirements that parents and teachers or educators place on them;
- cannot comply with the daily routine, do not get enough sleep or eat poorly;
- painfully and strongly take into account other people's opinions;
- do not like to part with the past, throw away old broken toys, make new friends, move to a new place of residence;
- prone to frequent depression.
It is clear that individually each of the listed factors happens from time to time with each person. The development of the disease is influenced by the duration of emotion or experience, and therefore long depression is dangerous, and not a one-time apathy, prolonged fear is dangerous, not a momentary state. Any negative emotion or attitude, if it lasts long enough, can cause a certain illness.
How do you find the reason?
Without exception, all diseases, according to the well-known world psychosomats (Louise Hay, Liz Burbo and others), are based on five basic bright emotions:
- fear;
- anger;
- sadness;
- interest;
- joy.
They need to be considered in three projections - how the child sees himself (self-esteem), how the child sees the world around him (attitude to events, phenomena, values), how the child interacts with other people (the presence of conflicts, including hidden ones). It is necessary to establish a trusting relationship with the child, try to find out with him what worries and worries him, what upsets him, whether there are people whom he does not love, what he is afraid of. Child psychologists and psychotherapists can help with this. As soon as an approximate circle of the child's emotions is outlined, you can begin to work out the underlying causes.
Some popular authors (the same Louise Hay) compiled psychosomatic tables, to make the task easier. They indicate diseases and the most common causes of their occurrence. However, you cannot blindly trust such tables, because they are rather average, often compiled when observing a small group of people with similar symptoms and emotional experiences.
The tables do not take into account the personality and personality of your child, which is a very important point. Therefore, it is advisable to familiarize yourself with the tables, but it is better to analyze the situation yourself or contact a specialist in the field of psychosomatics - now there are such.
It should be understood that if the disease has already manifested itself, it is obvious, then a very long path has been covered - from thought to emotion, from creating erroneous attitudes to turning these attitudes into a wrong way of thinking. Therefore, the search process can be quite long. After the cause is found, you will have to work on all the changes that it has caused in the body - this will be the treatment process. The fact that the cause was found correctly and the healing process began will be evidenced by an improvement in the general condition, a decrease in symptoms. Parents will almost immediately pay attention to positive changes in the baby's well-being.
Disease development
It should be understood that the thought itself does not cause an attack of appendicitis or the appearance of allergies. But thought gives an impulse to muscle contraction. This connection is clear to everyone - the brain gives commands to the muscles, setting them in motion. If the child has an internal conflict, then one thought will tell him "act" and the muscles will be readied. And the other (conflicting) emotion will say “no need to do this” and the muscle will freeze in a state of readiness, not making a movement, but also not returning to its original calm state.
This mechanism can quite primitively explain why the disease is formed. We are talking not only about the muscles of the arms, legs, back, but also about the small and deep muscles of the internal organs. At the cellular level, with such a prolonged spasm, which is practically not felt, metabolic changes begin. Gradually, tension is transmitted to neighboring muscles, tendons, ligaments, and with sufficient accumulation, a moment comes when the weakest organ does not withstand and ceases to function as expected.
The brain "signals" not only the muscles, but also the endocrine glands. Fright or sudden joy is known to cause the adrenal glands to produce more adrenaline. In the same way, other emotions affect the balance of hormones and secretory fluids in the body. With an imbalance, which is inevitable with prolonged exposure to a certain organ, the disease begins.
If a child does not know how to “dump” emotions, but only accumulates them, without expressing, without sharing his thoughts with others, hiding his real feelings from them, fearing to be misunderstood, punished, condemned, then the tension reaches a certain point, and is thrown out in the form disease, because energy output is needed in any form. This argument looks very convincing - two children who live in the same city, in the same ecological environment, who eat the same, have the same sex and age, do not have congenital diseases, and for some reason get sick in different ways. One will get sick up to ten times during the season, and the other will not get sick even once.
Thus, the influence of ecology, lifestyle, nutrition, state of immunity is not the only thing that affects the incidence. A child with psychological problems will get sick several times a year, and a baby without such problems will not get sick even once.
The psychosomatic picture is not entirely obvious for researchers so far. congenital diseases. But most specialists in the field of psychosomatics consider such ailments as a consequence of the wrong attitudes and thoughts of a woman during pregnancy and even long before it occurs. First of all, it is important to understand how a woman perceived children before pregnancy, what emotions the fetus evoked in her during pregnancy, and also how she treated the child's father at that time.
In harmonious couples who mutually love and expect their baby, children suffer from congenital diseases much less often than in families where mom felt rejection of dad's words and deeds, if she regularly thought that getting pregnant was not worth it at all. Few of the mothers raising children with disabilities, children with severe congenital ailments are ready to admit even to themselves that there were negative thoughts, and hidden conflicts, and fears, and rejection of the fetus at some moments, maybe there were even thoughts about an abortion. It is doubly difficult then to realize that the child is sick because of the mistakes of adults. But the mother can still help alleviate his condition, improve the quality of life, if she has the courage to work out the underlying causes of the baby's illness.
Possible causes of some diseases
As already mentioned, the reasons should be considered only taking into account the nature and characteristics of this particular child, his family environment, the relationship between parents and the baby, and other factors that may affect the psyche and emotional state of the child. We will give only a few diagnoses that have been most studied in the psychosomatic direction of medicine with possible causes of their occurrence: (for the description, data from several diagnostic tables were used - L. Hay, V. Sinelnikova, V. Zhikarantseva):
Adenoids
Quite often, adenoiditis develops in children who feel unwanted (subconsciously). Mom should remember whether she felt like having an abortion, whether there was disappointment after childbirth, postpartum depression. With adenoids, the child "asks" for love and attention, and also encourages parents to abandon conflicts and quarrels. To help the baby, you need to change the attitude towards him, satisfy his needs for love, resolve conflicts with the other half.
Therapeutic attitude: "My baby is welcome, beloved, we have always needed him."
Autism
The most likely cause of autism is considered to be a defensive reaction that the baby turned on at some point in order to "close" from scandal, screams, insults, beatings. Researchers believe that the risk of developing autism is higher if a child witnesses severe parental scandals with possible violence before the age of 8-10 months. Congenital autism, which doctors associate with a gene mutation, from the point of view of psychosomatics, is a long-term feeling of danger in the mother, possibly from her very childhood, fears during pregnancy.
Atopic dermatitis
Like most diseases that have one way or another related to allergies, atopic dermatitis is a rejection of something. The stronger the child does not want to accept someone or something, the stronger the manifestations of an allergic reaction. In infants, atopic dermatitis can be a signal that the touch of an adult is unpleasant for him (if he is taken with too cold or wet hands, if a sharp and unpleasant smell for the baby comes from the person). The crumb thus asks not to touch him. Therapeutic attitude: “The baby is safe, he is not in danger. All people around him wish him well and health. He is comfortable with people. "
The same setting can be used for other types of allergies. The situation requires the elimination of unpleasant physical impact.
Asthma, bronchial asthma
These ailments, like some other diseases associated with the onset of respiratory failure, more often occur in children who are pathologically strongly attached to their mother. Their love is literally "suffocating." Another option is the strictness of parents when raising a son or daughter. If a child is taught from an early age that it is forbidden to cry, laughing loudly is indecent, jumping and running in the street is the height of bad taste, then the child grows up, afraid to express his true needs. They gradually begin to "strangle" him from the inside. New attitudes: “My child is safe, he is loved strongly and unconditionally. He can perfectly express his emotions, he sincerely cries and rejoices. " Mandatory measures are to eliminate pedagogical excesses.
Angina
The disease can speak of the child's fear to say something, to ask for something very important to him. Sometimes children are afraid to raise their voices in their own defense. Angina is more characteristic of timid and indecisive children, quiet and shy. By the way, similar underlying causes can be found in children with laryngitis or laryngotracheitis. New attitudes: “My child has a voice. He was born with this right.He can openly and boldly say whatever he thinks! " To the standard treatment of tonsillitis or chronic tonsillitis, you should definitely add role-playing plot games or a visit to a psychologist's office so that the child can realize his right to be heard.
Bronchitis
Bronchitis, especially chronic, is very necessary for a child in order to reconcile his parents or other relatives with whom he lives together or to defuse the tense situation in the family. When the baby is choking with a cough, adults automatically shut up (pay attention on occasion - this is true!). New attitudes: "My child lives in harmony and peace, he likes to communicate with everyone, he is pleased to listen to everything around him, because he hears only good things." Mandatory parenting actions are urgent measures to eliminate conflicts, and it is necessary to remove not only their "loudness", but also the very fact of their existence.
Myopia
Myopia, like most vision problems, is caused by an unwillingness to see something. Moreover, this reluctance has a conscious and decisive character. A baby can become short-sighted at 3-4 years old due to the fact that from birth he sees something in his family that scares him, makes him close his eyes. This can be a difficult relationship between parents, physical abuse, and even the daily arrival of a nanny to the child, whom he does not like (in this case, the child often develops an allergy to something in parallel).
At an older age (in school and adolescence), diagnosed myopia may indicate the child's lack of goals, plans for the future, unwillingness to see beyond today, fear of responsibility for decisions made independently. In general, many problems with the organs of vision are associated with these reasons (blepharitis, conjunctivitis, with anger - barley). New attitude: “My child clearly sees his future and himself in it. He likes this beautiful, interesting world, he sees all its colors and details. " At a young age, a correction of family relationships is needed, a revision of the child's social circle. In a teenage child, help in career guidance, communication and cooperation with adults, and the fulfillment of their responsible assignments is required.
Diarrhea
We are not talking about a single diarrhea, but about a problem that has a protracted nature or diarrhea, recurring with an enviable frequency. Loose stools tend to react to children with strong fear, expressed anxiety. Diarrhea is an escape from something that does not lend itself to children's comprehension. These can be mystical experiences (fear of Babai, zombies) and very real fears (fear of the dark, spiders, cramped rooms, and so on). It is necessary to identify the cause of the fear and eliminate it. If this does not work at home, you should definitely seek help from a psychologist.
New attitude: “My baby is not afraid of anyone. He is brave and strong. He lives in a safe space where nothing threatens him. "
Constipation
The tendency to constipation is characteristic of greedy children, however, and adults too. And also constipation can talk about the child's unwillingness to part with something. Sometimes constipation begins to torment the child exactly at the time when he is going through serious life changes - moving, transferring to a new school or kindergarten. The child does not want to part with old friends, with an old apartment, where everything is clear and familiar to him. Stool problems begin. Constipation in a baby may be associated with his subconscious urge to return back to the familiar and protected environment of the mother's womb.
New Treatment Attitude: “My child can easily part with everything that he no longer needs. He is ready to accept everything new. " In practice, confidential communication is required, frequent discussion of the merits of a new kindergarten or a new apartment.
Stuttering
Quite often, a child who does not feel safe for a long time starts to stutter. And this speech defect is characteristic of children who are strictly forbidden to cry. At heart, stuttering children suffer greatly from the inability to express themselves. It should be understood that this feature disappeared earlier than normal speech, and in many ways its disappearance was the cause of the problem.
New Attitude: “My child has tremendous opportunities to show the world his talents. He's not afraid to express his feelings. " In practice, the stutterer is good at creativity, drawing and music, but best of all - singing. The categorical prohibitions to cry are the path to illness and problems.
Runny nose
Prolonged rhinitis may indicate that the child has low self-esteem, that he is in dire need of understanding his true value in this world, in the recognition of his abilities and merits. If it seems to the child that the world does not understand and appreciate him and this condition is delayed, sinusitis may be diagnosed. Treatment Attitude: “My child is the best. He is happy and very loved. I just need it. " Additionally, you need to work with the child's assessment of himself, more often praise him, encourage him.
Otitis
Like any other diseases of the hearing organs, otitis media can cause negative words, swearing, obscenities, which the child is forced to listen to from adults. Not wanting to listen to something, the child deliberately limits his hearing ability. The mechanism of development of sensorineural hearing loss and deafness is more complex. In the event of such problems, the child categorically refuses to listen to someone or something that severely wounds him, offends, humiliates his dignity. In adolescents, hearing problems are associated with unwillingness to listen to parental instructions. Treatment attitudes: “My child is obedient. He hears well, he likes to listen and hear every detail of this world. "
In fact, you need to reduce excessive parental control, talk to your child about topics that are pleasant and interesting for him, get rid of the habit of "reading morality."
Fever, fever
An unreasonable fever, high temperature, which lasts for no apparent reason during normal tests, may indicate an internal anger that has accumulated in the child. A child can get angry at any age and the inability to express anger comes out in the form of heat. The younger the child, the more difficult it is for him to express his feelings in words, the higher his temperature is. New attitudes: "My child is positive, he is not angry, he knows how to let go of the negative, does not accumulate it and does not harbor anger at people." In fact, you should set your child up for something good. The attention of the baby should be switched to a beautiful toy with kind eyes. It is imperative to communicate with a large child and find out what conflict situations he has recently had, on whom he holds evil. After pronouncing the problem, the child will become much easier, and the temperature will begin to decrease.
Pyelonephritis
This disease often develops in children who are forced to do not "their" business. Mom wants her son to become a hockey player, so the child is forced to attend the sports section, while playing the guitar or painting landscapes with wax crayons is closer to him. Such a child with repressed emotions and desires is an optimal candidate for the role of a nephrologist patient. New attitude: "My child is engaged in a favorite and interesting thing, he is talented and has a great future." In practice, you need to allow the child to choose his own business to his liking, and if hockey is not a joy for a long time, you need to part with the section without regrets and go to a music school, where he is so eager.
Enuresis
The main reason for this unpleasant nighttime phenomenon is most often fear and even horror. Moreover, most often, according to experts in the field of psychosomatics, the child's feeling of fear is somehow connected with the father - with his personality, behavior, the father's educational methods, his attitude towards the child and his mother. New attitudes: “The child is healthy and is not afraid of anything. His dad loves and respects him, wishes him well. " In fact, sometimes a rather extensive psychological work with parents is required.
Conclusions
Vomiting, cystitis, pneumonia, epilepsy, frequent acute respiratory viral infections, stomatitis, diabetes mellitus, psoriasis and even lice - each diagnosis has its own psychosomatic cause. The main rule of psychosomatics is not to replace traditional medicine. Therefore, the search for the causes and their elimination at the psychological and deeper level should be done in parallel with the prescribed treatment. So, the likelihood of recovery increases significantly, and the risk of relapse is noticeably reduced, because a psychological problem found and solved correctly is minus one disease.
All about the psychosomatic causes of childhood illnesses, see the next video.
