Matters of the mind

The mind is still a bit of a mystery to medical science, and clinically one cannot demarcate exactly where it lies or how it works. Therefore, the mind in its abstract nature comprises what one feels or experiences in symbols, both conscious and unconscious, such as feelings, dreams, past experiences, hopes for the future and sensitivity to reactions,
contends Devyani Bhuyan

THERE was nothing the doctor could do. When Sushmita asked him whether she should try some other branch of medicine for her throbbing headaches, all he said was to give it a try.

Dr Mukund Patel knew that time was the only medicine which was going to work on Sushmita. A year after her husband’s death in a horrific car accident, she had gone into an acute depression and began complaining of severe headaches, which kept getting more and more acute. She soon became a mental wreck with a body pumped by heavy doses of analgesics.

In medical parlance Sushmita has a psychosomatic disorder. And her problem is a physical manifestation of her mental crisis. Even now medical experts say that migraine is a mystery disease which apparently has a lot do with the personality of the person afflicted by it and is usually the result of emotional stress due to some mental shock.

Studies show that negative psycho-social factors can affect healthy people like Sushmita and make them prone to migraine and other serious diseases. Conversely, in positive cases, the mind can have a healing effect as well. A distinctive see-saw is played between the mind and the body with factors like stress, strain, anxiety, trauma and shock acting as the determinants of this unique game.

Dr D. Mohan, Head of the Psychiatry department at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, firmly believes in the concept of the mind-body relation. Says the eminent doctor: "It is inevitable that the mind has a powerful role to play in the bodily changes and a healthy mind can actually do wonders for a sick body just as a ‘sick’ mind can trigger off a number of negative physical disorders." The sick mind here denotes not a psychologically disoriented mind, but, as Dr Mohan explains, a negative attitude which may cause illness.

"Though we cannot pin-point scientifically exactly how this mind-body relation works," says Dr Mohan, "yet in many cases of hypertension, ulcers and diabetes, psychological factors have played a decisive role in determining its progress." In some diabetic patients, studies have proved that stress or depression attacks can influence pancreatic secretion. In comparison, people with severe diabetic and coronary heart problems, who have maintained a ‘positive attitude’ supplementing it with regulated food habits, have proved that the mind helps the body in aiding it towards improvement and control.

Some medical experts say that the mind-body link is primarily due to neurosis in which the main symptom is anxiety of some kind. This is manifest physical ailments and people suffering from neurosis can psyche themselves into serious illnesses like paralysis, heart attacks, blindness, deafness, lapses of memory, migraines and complicated stomach ailments. Neurosis can result from some sudden loss of a person or wealth or from lack of self respect or from an obsession to be judged favourably by society. Most neurosis fail to face upto reality.

Clinical psychologist, Dr Shubendu Dubey, explaining the complex nature of the mind-body relationship says; " The mind is still a bit of a mystery to medical science and clinically, one cannot demarcate exactly where it lies or how it works. Therefore, the mind in its abstract nature comprises what one feels or experiences in symbols both conscious and unconscious such as feelings, dreams, past experiences, hopes for the future and sensitivity to reactions."

According to Dr Dubey, there are three psycho-physical factors which have the maximum impact on a person’s mind. They are sexual frustrations, individuals self assessment, and adjustment and reaction factors. Sexual problems, even a simple biological process like menopause, can trigger off a series of similar problems. "More than the loss of reproductive capacity, it is the fear of losing one’s appeal that actually causes most of the depressions which can in turn lead to severe problems," says Dr Dubey.

Corroborating Dr Dubey’s claims that it is often the go-getters pushing themselves to extreme limits who have psychosomatic disorders, Dr Ramesh Deka, also of AIIMS, says that cases of such problems have increased dramatically in hospitals. " Some of the very common problems like ringings in the ears or heart dizziness or anxiety are often results of high stress conditions," he explains.

Very often an active professional unable to cope with retirement begins to suffer from severe social readjustment problems. In such cases more than the stress and strain, it is the inability of the person to cope with a new and more sedate way of life that breaks out into various physical ailments. Once the given factor —be it stress, strain, tension or anxiety — is removed, it is not difficult to cure the patient, though the harm done cannot be totally eliminated and leaves its distinct mark on the patient’s health.

Emphasising the dangerous role the ‘stress factor’ can play on health, Dr. Rajiv K. Singh, assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry, in Delhi’s leading Lady Hardinge Medical College, says that though we usually associate ‘stress’ with job or financial tensions, it can come in relation to various other factors.

And different situations may produce different stress reactions on different individuals. For example, in the case of bronchial asthma in a child the cause might be as simple as over-protective parents, or even fear or guilt. Says Dr Singh; " It has been proved in cases that immune function can be lowered by emotional stress."

With today’s high stress problems, it is not a wonder that thousands of people all over the globe are busy trying out some method or the other to relieve stress. Even doctors and health consultants agree that one can actually do oneself a lot of good by undertaking one such " relaxation therapy".

Dr Ramesh Deka, in spite of his belief that yoga cannot cure any ailment, feels it can act as a tone-up exercise in sharpening and relaxing the mind and clearing the senses. Similarly, Dr Vinod Kalla, himself an anaesthetic and an acupuncturist, feels that traditional sciences like ayurveda, unani or acupuncture soothe the mind more than the anti-biotic and other surgical treatments.

Though, in reality, the mind cannot cure a disease and can only help control it, it has been established that a distinct relationship exists between the psychological, biological and social processes in humans. Perhaps that is what Greek philosopher Socrates meant when he remarked; "As it is not proper to cure the eyes without the head, nor the head without the body, so neither is it proper to cure the body without the mind."