Show har bor doctor m J iffus 0 0 9 the following is one of a series of articles written by members of the utah state medical 1 As association social 1 on and publisher publish et in cooperation with your to 0 o at newspaper these articles are scheduled daled to appear every other week throughout the year in an effort to better acquaint you with problems of heath heal h and designed to improve the veil vell being of the people of utah NERVOUS AND EMOTIONAL ILLNESS despite how muc we may differ in other ways all of us as human beings have one thing in common scarcely a day goes by that does not bring some situation which re quires emotional control usually when we are adult we w can handle most of these without undue dif faculty occasionally however an exceptionally troublesome problem arises or several smaller ones hit us at once and we show symptoms of emotional distress we handle these problems in the best way available to us in view of our per and brevious experienc exper iene e nature has given us the response of fear for the good purpose of a erting orting us to danger so go that we car be prepared to meet it t and de fend ourselves from it in civilized society however many of the thing things we worry about are so in tangible that it is difficult to put our finger on them handle them and stop the fear response we may mav worry about our lobs jobs our ability to make friends our ability to be good parents or marriage partners our relationships with people who are important to us or our ability to handle the strong emotions which are seething inside of us under emotional stress some people expedience pure fear accod panie by a pounding heart per hands and a feeling of im lm pending ending catastrophe some people develop phobic or unrealistic fears in an attempt to their acx bety or become a prey to recur rent disturbing thoughts which ex tend themselves lo 10 0 o such a degree that they do dominate minte much of the waking hours some people at tempt to pull away into a world of their own which is free from dis curbing factors many people de celop physical symptoms some times thase involve the inta mUr reaction of emotions and an organ of tie body which results in structural damage to the organ as is the case in peptic ulcers such a disease is best handled by a two pronged treatment involving both general medical aid and an at tempt to lessen emotional pressure by the general physician or by psychiatric treatment there are many people who con vert or turn an emotion into a physical symptom in a way which involves no organic changes at all when a person blushes for in stance he converts an emotion of embarrassment or pleasure into a physical flushing of the skin yet no matter how many times a day he may blush no organic changes take place in his skin or ciraula tory system probably no group of people is so bewildered over their symptoms a the group that ex pre ses emotional tension by devel physical p h s i a manifestations which do not resul in structural damage to the organ they ex acute or persistent pain in in some of the body after a thorough examination their phy asician tells then that they are in good phy iea ica health and that there la 14 no organic reason for the symptoms he may add that the willress Is functional that is that the trouble truble is ix the way the organ is working not in the organ itself thi may be perplexing to the pa tient it is ha hara for him to believe that what is felt as physical pain may ca e from emotional causes and he fee he ib being told that it is all in hi head or that his pain is 13 imaginary any time pain is felt it is real and pain induced by emotional tension can be lust just as severe as that brought abou by oy organic ill ness however since the cause is different the treatment is also dif ferent with persistence of lymp toms of this type then psychiatric treatment may be the medical treatment of choice this is the process of reorganizing the emo dional life so that better ways can be found to meet the and strains strain of pf living |