Discover Top Posts Tagged with #conversion disorders

How Does Psychological Magic Work? by Art Smukler, MD, author & Psychiatrist

Understanding that it’s important to understand the underlying dynamics of a conversion disorder. Thanks for watching. Art #conversiondisorder, #psychiatrist, #psychologist, #therapist, #psychotherapy, #psychological-health

#Conversion Disorders #Inside the mind of a psychiatrist #Psychotherapy

i know you're not a shrink but in university did you ever study anything about emotional pain being expressed in the form of physical pain? i feel very melancholic (and mildly anxious) and i can feel it as a bad ache, soreness or tension in my chest and neck, a really physical feeling that's mostly separate from my mind. sometimes i randomly start crying because it hurts so much. my body and mind are separate. it's harder to breathe and i know it's all psychological in origin. but like it's been a week of this lol i can ignore it right this moment though? like rn in my mind i feel fine but the emotion hurts physically

if you did, can you explain how or why the brain does that shit.... it's so fucking weird omg. sometimes i wonder if a have a dissociative disorder i don't know about because my mind and body are enemies and love to disconnect lol

hey there! Sorry for the late answer! The short answer is that I didn't learn much about this during my studies, aside from some discussions about dissociative (conversion) disorders. That said, I have some thoughts. First of all, it's worth noting that all pain is *felt* psychologically. The brain is the center of feeling pain/registering pain.

If you burn your hand, the nerves will quickly send their pain signal to the brain, and the brain will respond by letting you know that *your hand hurts* This also means that if you're feeling unexplained pain, it can originate from a variety of places - faulty nerves sending signals that are intepreted as pain by the brain - or the brain itself might be misinterpreting other signals, or creating pain out of thin air.

So what I mean to say by this is to validate that ANY PAIN is ALWAYS felt in the brain. So the distinction between somatic and "psychosomatic" pain is not a distinction on whether the pain is real. It's a distinction on where the pain originates.

I hate people who argue that pain without physical cause is just to be "ignored away". NO!!

It's a sign that something is being misinterpreted as PAIN and pain is a feeling that is very very real. No less real than if it had a physical cause. Now in this specific instance you feel as if the pain is caused by emotional pain: This may or may not be a correct interpretation, but it's certainly a possible one. And especially with the tension and soreness you describe, this can be involved in a feedback loop - bc feeling anxious makes you tense up, and feeling anxious makes you feel pain more intensely (this is very true and proven), and then the anxiety itself might get worse bc of the pain, not to mention that emotional pain CAN itself be felt as physical pain.

Actually my fiancé struggles a lot with this type of pain.

With all this said, however, I also find it important to note that if you have persistent pains it's important to try to get it checked out by a doctor. Bc sometimes we will misguidedly write any pain we experience off as part of a psychological issue, but pain can also be a signal that something is not good physically. So if it is at a point or gets to a point where it impairs your functioning, I strongly recommend seeing a doctor.

Maybe get a referral to a physical therapist, if possible. When I struggled with a lot of pain due to actual-physical-issues-meet-anxiety-loop-meet-psychosis-and-dissociation it was a physical therapist who was finally able to help me break the vicious cycle.

I would try to give you more specific advice, but I think this is what I got, based on your ask. Thank you for having patience with me! maybe drop a line to let me know if you ended up seeing my answer.

Take care!

#cat is a postman #conversion disorders #anxiety loops #pain is pain is pain

To the anon who asked:

can an alter be blind

Sorry my asks glitched and tumblr ate my whole reply. I’ll try to remember what I said.

An alter can perceive themselves to be blind in headspace or their inner world. Blindness could be part of their identity or part of a protective belief they hold. If they continue to experience blindness while fronting the system could be diagnosed with a conversion disorder.

Conversion disorders are disorders where someone experiences blindness, paralysis, or seizures that are not caused by a physical problem but are caused by psychological distress or trauma. Conversion disorders are actually fairly common in DID/OSDD. I believe non-epileptic seizures, commonly called pseudo-seizures are the most common form of conversion disorder seen in people with DID/OSDD.

If any part of your system is experiencing blindness, paralysis or seizure it is very important to get checked out by medical doctors first to be sure it isn’t a medical condition. This is especially true if it is the first time it has happened. Sudden blindness can be a sign of a serious medical problem!

If there’s no medical explanation for their blindness, then it would definitely be something I’d bring up in therapy.

#DID Asks #conversion disorders

hi! do you have any experience with conversion symptoms? so far my doctors haven't found a definitive physical cause & it's hard for me to believe this could all be due to dissociation. in your experience, are there ways to tell if something is more likely a conversion symptom or due to a physical condition (in addition to doing testing to rule out physical causes)? do you know of anything that might help alleviate symptoms? (issues walking, talking, with fine motor skills + sight, pain etc.)

We have never been diagnosed with a conversion disorder, but we have a lot of experience with going through lots of medical tests only to be told in the end “there’s nothing wrong, it’s just stress”.

It’s a difficult situation to navigate because there are plenty of examples of situations in which people’s pain and symptoms are not taken seriously and it turns out that they had legitimate health problems. This is especially true if you belong to any sort of minority group. Doctors often ignore women’s self-reports of pain, especially if they are diagnosed with a mental illness.

So I believe in advocating for yourself and insisting on tests to rule out medical causes. But it’s true that people with dissociative disorders do often have conversion symptoms and somatic pain related to dissociation. And it is often hard to tell the difference. Often your only option is to rule out physical causes first, and then attempt to work through any underlying emotional issues that could be causing the problem.

From October until February we were having debilitating migraines, up to 15 of them a month. We saw multiple doctors and specialists and even had an MRI. After all of the possible medical causes had been ruled out, we accepted that it was a dissociative issue and started trying to work through it in therapy. And then suddenly something occurred to one of us. We had started taking a new medication in October. None of our doctors had pieced this together. The new medication wasn’t well known for causing migraines, but we’re very medication sensitive. We quit the medication and the migraines decreased to about 4 per month.

The moral of the story is that sometimes even when you think something is a dissociative issue, it can turn out to be a physical issue after all. You really have to advocate for yourself when it comes to medical care. Keep good records and take them with you to doctors appointments.

To more directly answer your question, I’ve heard really good things about using Internal Family Systems to address conversion disorders, but I know IFS isn’t for everyone.

#Conversion Disorders #IFS #tw: doctors #tw: medical #contacting-u