Sometimes a persistent stress symptom has a hidden meaning. In other words, the patient is unknowingly trying to communicate to others by means of his symptom what he is really thinking and feeling, but, for whatever reason, is unable to express in words. People who indulge in this type of communication are highly ‘unaware’ and ‘immature’ people. These physical symptoms are often referred to as ‘conversion symptoms,’ meaning that emotional expression has been converted into a physical symptom that expresses that emotion by proxy.
1) A young lady goes blind unable to deal with her helplessness over her father’s blindness. By going blind she is trying to communicate her intolerable grief, feelings of helplessness and hopelessness regarding her father’s blindness. Once she expresses these feelings verbally, her blindness goes away.
2) A middle aged lady temporarily goes deaf unable to take her husband’s verbal attacks anymore. By going deaf she is saying in effect, ‘I just can’t hear his bad mouthing me anymore.’ With one counseling session in which she expresses her hurt and anger, she regains her hearing.
3) An outraged wife loses her speech unable to lash out at her unfaithful husband. She wants to give her waywardly husband a good tongue-lashing, but is afraid of losing him. After expressing her anger at him in writing, her speech comes back.
4) A middle aged man develops paralysis of his right arm as a way of coping with his irresistible desire to beat the crap out of his tyrannical boss. But he can not do so for fear of losing his job and going to prison. Once he verbally expresses his rage, his paralysis disappears.
5) A pastor hurt by his dismissal by his congregation experiences an unbearable ‘stabbing pain’ in his back. Once he expresses his disappointment, hurt and sense of betrayal, his back pain gradually goes away.
6) A young man, heartbroken over the breakup with his girlfriend, complains of unbearable chest pain. In counseling, he grieves over the loss, lets go of her and his chest pain goes away.
7) A young lady, burning with envy over her neighbor’s huge swimming pool, complains of severe, constant heartburn. Once she gets over her envy in therapy, her heartburn goes away.
8) A submissive worker feels emasculated by his domineering boss and develops impotence. After he confronts his boss and realizes that his boss is just a wimp, he becomes potent again.
9) A passive-natured boss develops pain in the neck after he hires a lousy secretary who messes up everything in the office. After he has a good chat with his secretary and he takes charge of the office situation, his pain in the neck improves.
10) A child, upset over being sexually abused by a baby sitter, complains of pain in the genital area. Once the mother acknowledges the child’s suffering and fires the baby sitter, the genital pain goes away.
11) A young fellow, saddened over his grandfather’s death from emphysema, complains of difficulty breathing. After grieving over the loss of his beloved grandfather, he starts breathing normally.
12) Another young man develops spells of shortness of breath unable to deal with his feelings of being stifled by his domineering father. After his father acknowledges his feelings and backs off, his shortness of breath disappears. This list is literally unending.
Sometimes, after losing a dear friend or relative, the survivor might suffer from the same type of symptoms as the dead person. A person might develop chest pain shortly after the death of a parent from heart attack. He might walk and talk like the dead person. This phenomenon is called identification. It is not uncommon for one to run to doctors with the same type of symptoms his relative or friend suffered from before dying.
What all this means is that unexpressed painful emotions would show up in one form or another, sooner or later. Here we must recall the saying of Dr. Harry Maudsley (1835-1918): ‘The sorrow that has no vent in tears may make other organs weep.’ When the patient becomes aware of the meaning of these symptoms and begins to talk about his painful emotions, symptoms begin to go away.
Without professional intervention, these symptoms could become chronic and disabling. Continued paralysis of an arm could lead to what is called disuse atrophy. Continued stress-related blindness could cause degenerative changes in the eye grounds leading to permanent loss of sight. Many Cambodian women, who went ‘blind’ unable to witness atrocities by Communists against their children, did not receive timely counseling. Most of them became permanently blind due to chronic disuse of retina.