If you believe that you suffer from physical complaints of psychological origin or have neurasthenic tendencies, you may find value in the following list of coping stragegies:
1. Believe your physicians. Many people with hypochondriacal or neurasthenic tendencies go from doctor to doctor hoping to find one who will agree that their problem has an organic basis. You should seek a second, and even a third opinion before you are satisfied with a diagnosis. But there is a logical limit.
2. Do whatever you can to manage stress. Beard, who you recall first introduced the term neurasthenia, believed that the condition was induced by overwork. Today, this appears to be an oversimplification. It is probable that an underlying neurotic process is at work. Nonetheless, there is some value to Beard's formulation. Overwork, life changes, difficult interpersonal relations, and so forth, can all act as triggers that precipitate a rash of complaints. Sources of stress, if they are not eliminated, can also aggravate the distress associated with complaints. Try to become an expert at "stress management". Learn effective ways to control or at least to diminish, the impact of stress-inducing events in your personal world.
3. Challenge the idea that you are frail and sickly. George Kelly, a pioneer figure in personality theory and psychotherapy, introduced the concept of a personal construct. A personal construct is an idea that one holds about oneself. It may or may not reflect objective reality. However, it is treated as if it is real by the individual holding it. Consequently, it determines behaviour and forms the basis of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thus, if you have ideas such as "I am frail" or "I am sickly", you will certainly act like a frail and sickly person. And by your own behaviour, you will create the very state of affairs you wish to avoid.
4. Refuse to play the role of sick person. It is important to recognize that this role is a kind of choice or decision that you make and that you have other options. The decision to play the sick role is made by your emotional self. It is seeking reinforcers such as attention, tokens of love, power over others, and so forth. You need to find more effective ways to meet your emotional needs. Use your thinking self to make a rational decision to give up the short-term satisfactions of the sick role and to seek the long-term satisfactions of mature behaviour.
5. Reflect on your early childhood. Keep a journal with dated enteries and try to explore the roots of any feelings you have of being unloved and underappreciated. Try to ask and answer questions such as this one:"Did I feel emotionally abandoned as a child?" Developing insight into the origins of today's emotional needs can give a certain amount of conscious control over these needs. It is one way to loosen the grip of a neurotic process.
6. Develop a stoical attitude toward minor aches and pains. Stoicism, an ancient philosophical viewpoint, teaches that it is possible, within rational limits, to develop an attitude of cool, calm indifference toward suffering. Such an attitude has at least two advantages. First, you will extract less expressions of pity from others, and this will help to extinguish complaining as a maladaptive habit. Second, you may find it possible to reduce the amount of pain medication you take. The Greek dramatist Aeschylus expressed almost 2500 years ago this thought in his play Agamemnon:"Who, except the gods, can live time through forever without any pain?"
7. Seek effective ways to deal with anxiety and depression. Both of these emotional states, if chronic, magnify the symptoms common in a neurasthenic syndrome.
8. Professional Help
If you find that you cannot cope adequately with physical complaints of psychological origin, there are a number of ways in which the professions of psychiatry and clinical psychology can help you.
No comments:
Post a Comment