Dr Sarno discovered that when people:
- Go through or witness difficult experiences in the past and currently, such as neglect, physical and verbal abuse, abandonment, changing homes and schools, bullying, having a medical condition, divorce and marital problems, mental illness in the family, grief, career stress
- Have certain types of personality traits such as being a perfectionist, people pleaser, good do-er, overthinker, catastrophizer, stoic, overly positive, sensitive, legalist, having a harsh inner critic
- Go through major life events, even those considered as "positive" events, such as being a parent, getting married, starting a new job or a new relationship
These result in a build-up of "negative" emotions such as anger, rage, fear, anxiety, sadness, shame, guilt, helplessness, hopelessness.. all of which need to be processed healthily. If we fail to do that, by shutting emotions out, refusing their existence and not expressing them properly, whether consciously or unconsciously, we will end up suppressing or repressing these emotions, respectively.
The subconscious brain will then detect these emotions as dangerous, and every time they arise, the amygdala will pick up the danger signal and activate pathways to turn the sympathetic nervous system on.
The body will then unnecessarily enter "fight or flight (or freeze)" state which is usually activated when faced with real justified danger such as facing a dangerous animal. This state is characterized by high cortisol production, and redirection of blood flow to organs needed to face danger in the best way possible. Some changes include increased heart rate, sweating, shallow breathing and slowing down of the digestive system.
Chronic and over-activation of the sympathetic nervous system consequently leads to the creation of chronic pain and symptoms.
Other than the constant activation of the sympathetic nervous system due to continuous perception of "negative" emotions as dangerous, learned conditioning, associations and the reaction to symptoms are mostly responsible for keeping the chronic pain cycle going for years.
When symptoms develop, caused by suppressed or repressed emotions, people have the tendency to look for something to blame their symptoms on.
Unfortunately, they would consider anything but their emotional distress as a cause - a certain location, an object such as a chair, the weather, type of food, physical activity, basic movement but not how people made them feel at that certain location, how unhealthy food makes them feel or how unhappy they might be with their jobs. As soon as they find something to blame and start believing in it, with the help of common myths and misconceptions, the brain will automatically learn the association and will be conditioned to create symptoms every time that thing, location, activity or whatever is encountered - even in absence of the initial triggering emotion.
Another unfortunate point, the obvious reaction to unpleasant symptoms is frustration, anger and fear; seen as "negative" emotions that can also fuel the chronic pain cycle if not dealt with properly, by continuously signaling to the brain that symptoms are dangerous. Going back to Dr Sarno's distraction theory (Refer to Blog entry "Who is Dr Sarno?"), the brain will make sure to create symptoms that are frustrating and scary enough in order to keep attention away from expressing "dangerous" emotions.
