Caring For Body And Soul

Do you often have a “lump in your throat” or “butterflies in your tummy”? Jo Carlowe explains why mental pain can sometimes become physical

- Jo Carlowe

It’s been decades since I first studied psychology at university, but I still remember the graffiti that appeared in the ladies’ toilets a week before my finals.

“Exams are nature’s laxative,” was the adage scrawled across the cubicle door.

That it was written in a psychology department lavatory seemed apt, for the problem described was not solely physical but psychological.

OUR BODIES ACT AS BAROMETERS FOR OUR EMOTIONAL STATES.

In this fast-moving world, it’s easy to lose sight of this, yet it’s ingrained in our language. We get “butterflies in the tummy” when nervous, a “lump in the throat” when sad, and, if stressed, we have the “weight of the world on our shoulders.”

Already a mainstay of Eastern medicine, the idea of a mind-body connection was pioneered in the West in the 1930s by Austrian psychoanalyst, Wilhelm Reich. Reich believed pain in the body reflected tension in the mind. Unexpressed fear might manifest as a headache; withheld rage as neck pain, and repressed sadness as tension in the throat.

The latter makes me think of my grandmother. Long before I was born, she suffered the tragedy of a stillborn baby. Discharged from hospital, she visited her GP complaining of a throat obstruction. A few checks revealed there was nothing clinically wrong, and she was told to “pull herself together.” Such was the era.

Her story brings me back to Reich. His notion that repressed feelings could lead to tension in the throat, seems spot on—my grandma was literally so “choked up with grief,” she could barely swallow.