Psychosomatic Quotes

Gregory smiled a little, holding up an empty syringe. "I'm afraid you don't have all that much choice in the matter. I added a little something to your IV line. We'll see you in a few hours."
"What - ?" My eyes widened. "You bastard."
"My parents were married."
"You could have ... could have asked me ... " My voice was already slowing down. I didn't know whether it was psychosomatic or just very well timed, but either way, I was pissed. ~ Mira Grant

During the 1980s, in California, a large number of Cambodian women went to their doctors with the same complaint: they could not see. The women were all war refugees. Before fleeing their homeland, they had witnessed the atrocities for which the Khmer Rouge, which had been in power from 1975 to 1979, was well known. Many of the women had been raped or tortured or otherwise brutalized. Most had seen family members murdered in front of them. One woman, who never again saw her husband and three children after soldiers came and took them away, said that she had lost her sight after having cried every day for four years. She was not the only one who appeared to have cried herself blind. Others suffered from blurred or partial vision, their eyes troubled by shadows and pains.

The doctors examined the women - about a hundred and fifty in all - found that their eyes were normal. Further tests showed that their brains were normal as well. If the women were telling the truth - and there were some who doubted this, who thought the women might be malingering because they wanted attention or were hoping to collect disability - the only explanation was psychosomatic blindness.

In other words, the women's minds, forced to take in so much horror and unable to take more, had managed to turn out the lights. ~ Sigrid Nunez

Buddy was very proud of his perfect health and was always telling me it was psychosomatic when my sinuses blocked up and I couldn't breathe. I thought this an odd attitude for a doctor to have and perhaps he should study to be a psychiatrist instead. ~ Sylvia Plath

Human nature presents human minds with a puzzle which they have not yet solved and may never succeed in solving, for all that we can tell. The dichotomy of a human being into 'soul' and 'body' is not a datum of experience. No one has ever been, or ever met, a living human soul without a body ... Someone who accepts - as I myself do, taking it on trust - the present-day scientific account of the Universe may find it impossible to believe that a living creature, once dead, can come to life again; but, if he did entertain this belief, he would be thinking more 'scientifically' if he thought in the Christian terms of a psychosomatic resurrection than if he thought in the shamanistic terms of a disembodied spirit. ~ Arnold Joseph Toynbee

It's now generally accepted that Mesmer was actually treating psychosomatic illness, and he profited mightily from people's gullibility. In retrospect, his theories and practices sound ridiculous, but in truth, the story of Mesmer parallels many stories of today. It's not so ridiculous to imagine people falling prey to products, procedures, and health claims that are brilliantly marketed. Every day we hear of some news item related to health. We are bombarded by messages about our health - good, bad, and confusingly contradictory. And we are literally mesmerized by these messages. Even the smart, educated, cautious, and skeptical consumer is mesmerized. It's hard to separate truth from fiction, and to know the difference between what's healthful and harmful when the information and endorsements come from "experts. ~ David Perlmutter

Sean was watching me, though. And Sean wiped the bryozoa residue from his hand across my stomach. This was the third time a boy had ever touched my bare tummy, and I'd had enough.
Through gritted teeth, like any extra movement might spread the bryozoa further across my skin, I told him, "I like you less than I did." I bailed over the side of the boat-the side opposite where the bryozoa returned to its native habitat. Deep in the warm water, I scrubbed at my tummy with both hands. A combination of bryozoa waste and Sean germs: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Leaning toward worst, because now I had slime on my hands. Or maybe this was psychosomatic. Holding my hands open in front of me in the water, I didn't see any slime. I rubbed my hands together anyway.
Something dove into the water beside me in a rush of bubbles. I came up for air. Sean surfaced, too, tossing sparkling drops of water from his hair. "You still like me a lot, though, right?"
"No prob. Green is the new black." Giving up on getting clean, I swam a few strokes back toward the platform to get out again. What I needed was a shower with chlorinated water and disinfectant soap. I might need to bubble out my belly button with hydrogen peroxide.
"What if I made it up to you?" He splashed close behind me. "What if I helped you get clean? We don't want you dirty." He moved both hands around me under the water, up and down across my tummy.
It was the fourth time a boy had to ~ Jennifer Echols

And, whatever happens, never forget to wipe your sword. ~ C.S. Lewis

It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw. ~ Bill Watterson

Every era casts illness in its own image. Society, like the ultimate psychosomatic patient, matches its medical afflictions to its psychological crises; when a disease touches such a visceral chord, it is often because that chord is already resonating. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee

Mental tensions, frustrations, insecurity, aimlessness are among the most damaging stressors, and psychosomatic studies have shown how often they cause migraine headache, peptic ulcers, heart attacks, hypertension, mental disease, suicide, or just hopeless unhappiness. ~ Hans Selye

I went to one doctor who told me I wasn't exercising enough. I was so exhausted, I couldn't raise my arm. When this doctor called it psychosomatic, I was enraged. To think the constant sore throat and swollen glands were all in my head was infuriating. ~ Alana Stewart

Treating the body is really about treating the mind. It is all psychosomatic - every bit of it. No exceptions. ~ Esther Hicks

I didn't stop talking immediately. I talked right up until the day I remembered everything that happened, over a year later. That was the day I went silent. It wasn't a ploy or a tactic. It wasn't psychosomatic. It was a choice. And I made it. ~ Katja Millay

Surely even those immune from the world, for the time being, need the touch of one another, or all is lost. ~ Eudora Welty

Culture can only function if we live out the unwanted elements symbolically. All healthy societies have a rich ceremonial life. Less healthy ones rely on unconscious expressions: war, violence, psychosomatic illness, neurotic suffering, and accidents are very low-grade ways of living out the shadow. Ceremony and ritual are a far more intelligent means of accomplishing the same thing. Ceremonies ~ Robert A. Johnson

It was the old psychosomatic side-step. Everyone in my family dances it at every opportunity. You've given me a splitting headache! You've given me indigestion! You've given me crotch rot! You've given me auditory hallucinations! You've given me a heart attack! You've given me cancer! ~ Erica Jong

Lose/Win people bury a lot of feelings. And unexpressed feelings come forth later in uglier ways. Psychosomatic illnesses often are the reincarnation of cumulative resentment, deep disappointment and disillusionment repressed by the Lose/Win mentality. Disproportionate rage or anger, overreaction to minor provocation, and cynicism are other embodiments of suppressed emotion. People who are constantly repressing, not transcending feelings toward a higher meaning find that it affects the quality of their relationships with others. ~ Stephen Covey

Fear ordinarily does not lead to illness if the organism can flee successfully . If the individual cannot flee, but is forced to remain in a conflict situation which cannot be resolved, fear may turn into anxiety and psychosomatic changes may then accompany e anxiety. ~ Rollo May

He felt a psychosomatic rush of emptiness before he spoke. "Since we are getting to the real point, I am not stupid John. And it would be foolish to think me ignorant. Isn't this about the Science Nation interview? Isn't this because I mistakenly used the word "soul?" Isn't this about you and the others thinking somewhere along the lines, I had gained an imaginary soul? We all know when you gain a soul, you lose a mind. Don't we john?"
John hesitated briefly staring at Roma. "I believe so yes. Souls are luxuries for speculative minds. Real scientists can't afford such luxuries. They have the world to save."
Roma narrowed his eyes. "Or destroy. ~ Dew Platt

Because all actions and expressions
stem from the mind, it is vital to know the
mind as well as decide in what way we'll use it. Everyone has heard of psychosomatic illness, and most of us acknowledge that psychosomatic sicknesses can and do occur. But what
about psychosomatic wellness? ~ H.E. Davey

Thus it may be said that the symptoms are often ways of containing the anxiety; they are the anxiety in structuralized form. Freud rightly remarks about psychological symptoms: "The symptom is bound anxiety," or, in other words, anxiety which has been crystallized into an ulcer or heart palpitations or some other symptom. ~ Rollo May

My body is damaged from music in two ways. I have a red irritation in my stomach. It's psychosomatic, caused by all the anger and the screaming. I have scoliosis, where the curvature of your spine is bent, and the weight of my guitar has made it worse. I'm always in pain, and that adds to the anger in our music. ~ Kurt Cobain

Henry's universe was modeled on the highball. It was a mixture in which half a pint of the fizziest philosophical and scientific ideas all but drowned a small jigger of immediate experience, most of it strictly sexual. Broken reeds are seldom good mixers. They're far too busy with their ideas, their sensuality and their psychosomatic complaints to be able to take an interest in other people - even their own wives and children. They live in a state of the most profound voluntary ignorance, not knowing anything about anybody, but abounding in preconceived opinions about everything. ~ Aldous Huxley

It is also a fact that people who are isolated and alienated in their neighborhoods as a result of the large number of neighbors who do not speak Norwegian, who do not follow the Norwegian customs, norms and way of life, could have psychosomatic disorders that can lead to both sickness leave and need for medical help. ~ Carl I. Hagen

- Birds fly like birds and a man who has taken the devil's weed flies as such.
- As birds do?
- No, he flies as a man who has taken the weed. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Leukemia is evidently psychosomatic in origin and at least eight cases of leukemia
had been treated successfully by Dianetics after medicine had
traditionally given up. The source of leukemia has been reported to be
an engram containing the phrase 'It turns my blood to water. ~ L. Ron Hubbard