What is psychosomatic illness?

With the continuous development of science and technology, medical science is changing from the “biomedical model” to the “biopsychosocial model”, and the influence of psychological and social factors on health and disease has been emphasized accordingly. With the continuous development of science and technology, medical science is changing from a “biomedical model” to a “biopsychosocial model”, and the influence of psychological and social factors on health and disease has been emphasized. It is now widely recognized that the mind and the body, or the heart and the body, are an organic whole in the human life system and work together in all the activities of the individual. Modern medical and psychological research has proved that many kinds of diseases can be found in their psychological factors. The so-called psychological factors refer to the conflicts, tensions, bad habits and personality traits that arise in an individual’s mental activity. These factors can cause physical illnesses just as well as viruses, bacteria, and heredity are known to do. The concept of psychosomatic diseases was developed on this basis. The so-called psychosomatic diseases are those somatic diseases in which psycho-social factors play a dominant role in the occurrence and development of the disease. Since it has a physical disorder, psychosomatic diseases are also known as psychophysical diseases. Psychosomatic disorders are physical somatic disorders, but are different from physiologic disorders in general, and are also different from neuroses, which have only relatively vague somatic symptoms, often with no specific organic changes to be found. Scope of psychosomatic disorders The typical psychosomatic disorders proposed in the early days were: peptic ulcer, rheumatoid arthritis, hyperthyroidism, bronchial asthma, coronary heart disease and so on. These are mostly recognized. In recent years, the scope has been expanded to include almost all physical diseases, such as diabetes, obesity. Even cancer is included in the category of psychosomatic diseases. According to the organs and disciplines are categorized: (a) cardiovascular system: coronary heart disease, essential hypertension, arrhythmia and so on. (b) Digestive system: gastric and duodenal ulcers, ulcerative colitis, stomach cramps, anorexia nervosa (psychogenic). (iii) Respiratory system: bronchial asthma, hyperventilation syndrome, etc. (iv) Endocrine system: hyperthyroidism, obesity, etc. (E) Nervous system: tension headache, migraine, spasmodic strabismus, vegetative nerve dysfunction and so on. (vi) Genitourinary system: enuresis, impotence, menstrual irregularities, premenstrual tension, etc. (vii) Musculoskeletal system including diseases of immune mechanism: rheumatoid arthritis, myalgia, cervicobrachial syndrome, etc. (viii) Dermatology: urticaria, eczema, atopic dermatitis, itchy skin, etc. (ix) Ophthalmology: glaucoma, amblyopia, etc. (J) Otorhinolaryngology: Meniere’s syndrome, stuttering, pharyngeal foreign body sensation. (xi) Gynecology: functional uterine bleeding, infertility, etc. (xii) Stomatology: tongue pain, stomatitis, halitosis, etc. Treatment of psychosomatic diseases (a) Drug treatment: It is the basic treatment for psychosomatic diseases. Western medicine can choose anti-anxiety drugs, such as benzodiazepines, which can eliminate anxiety, tension, and have a good effect, and can promote the recovery of the disease. In comparison, traditional Chinese medicine is more advantageous in treatment, cheaper, if the identification is accurate, the effect is good, and not easy to repeat. (ii) Psychotherapy: 1. Behavioral therapy: It is a treatment method based on the principle of learning. Let the patient learn and adapt to new ways of responding, eliminate or overcome the old pathological ways of responding, in order to correct, overcome or eliminate pathological symptoms. The patient is mainly trained to control his or her behavior. Its main methods are, conditioned abatement and conditioned confrontation. 2. Biofeedback therapy: With the help of instruments, patients can change their behavior or correct their visceral reaction through learning. The specific method is to apply the biofeedback device to transform the somatic physiological information into easy-to-understand signals or counts. Prompt the patient to consciously control the pathological process, through continuous feedback, prompting functional recovery. 3.Self-training: the content of self-correction and self-neutralization. Self-correction is one of the methods of self-training. It is a method to balance the disorder by self-function, and in the treatment of psychosomatic diseases, there is a method to train specific organs. Self-neutralization is the release of repressed psychosomatic symptoms. The treatment takes the form of self-release, self-expression and self-verbalization, and in doing so, once improvement is felt after self-training, the patient can be guided to be more proactive in venting or speaking out about psychological and somatic symptoms.