🔗 Share this article

I just got back from a run. It’s shocking to write those words. I think it might have been a decade since the previous time. However It came to my attention that my levels show somewhat raised cholesterol, and doctors suggested to perform intense workouts on a consistent basis.

It’s the initial instance in my existence that my motivation to be active has been my health status. In my youth, I exercised because I aimed to slim down. I’ve also run to manage my anxiety – I was merely escaping from the worry, not addressing it. At other times, I ran because I wanted to improve with jogging. That represented the meaning to me back then to create a superior lifestyle.

Running for a different reason currently prompted contemplation about the approaches I’ve interacted with my physique throughout my life and its transformation as I progress from youth to being a middle-aged person. I don’t think I’ve valued my own body, not deep down. I’ve appreciated it solely for its capabilities and the purposes it provided: seeking approval; avoiding feelings; achieving a quicker five kilometers. Up to now, I hadn’t realized that my body represents me, it is my existence, rather than a tool for outcomes.

A great deal has been discussed for ages about the split of mind and body – which it’s reassuring to know, I’ll avoid detailing now. What I’ve found most intriguing is the Freudian perspective that mental and physical selves are naturally unified from birth, because physical development requires mental growth and the reverse is true. The newborn’s bodily experiences – for example the bodily feeling of hunger – propel consciousness to develop the ability to recognise hunger as an emotion that can be sated by eating; and the psychological solace and contentment consistently provided by repeated nourishment supports the young mind similar to the milk nourishes them physically. Likewise psychological experiences – like the wish to stand up and grab an object, and the persistence to attempt repeatedly – are why and how muscles grow stronger. Starting at birth, mind and body are intertwined in reciprocal evolution as unified as a spiral.

Yet I’ve observed, during therapy with my analyst, that my mind and body may exist in an alternate dynamic – one less integrated and increasingly manipulative. My psyche might utilize my physique to store and display aspects that my mind considers unacceptable or unbearable. In analysis we realized that there are specific feelings that I fear I cannot bear; instead of feeling these mentally, I subconsciously push them into my body, where they get stuck as bodily signs.

I used to get this as indigestion – unrelated to what I’d eaten, but represented a kind of corporeal reaction of the sharper sentiments I failed to handle psychologically. It wasn’t an intentional act, but after it was introduced to my attention through therapy, and my fear and sensitivity and frustration and terror became palpable and expressed verbally rather than changed into corporeal symptoms, it vanished. It’s uncommon for me from indigestion now.

The toughest period I endured this severe heartburn, I didn’t sleep for multiple consecutive nights. I felt I was forfeiting my sanity. I went to the GP, who organised all sorts of examinations and assessments, but no issues were found medically abnormal. The situation was another doctor who told me that the origin may be psychological. My psychoanalyst agreed. I was stunned, but I also felt it was accurate.

When a patient endures a physical symptom, it can be upsetting if told that it may have an emotional origin. It can seem as invalidation, being told that their illness is imagined. Certainly it’s a real phenomenon – some face their symptoms discounted or incorrectly identified. But in some cases it’s possible that the physical symptoms are real – certainly – and the origin is psychological, the unconscious employing the physical self to express emotional hurt or rage or whatever emotion awareness fails to handle. Occasionally, we may believe our experience is only valid when it is expressed in physical form. We persistently neglect our mental states on a personal level, collectively and within our culture; for what reason can we allow the shocking elimination of psychodynamic psychotherapy in public healthcare?

My experiences have shown me that a better life cannot be created while caught unconsciously in ways of relating, within ourselves and socially, that are rooted in devaluation, use and exchange. Such patterns are frequently more straightforward to spot “externally” in wider society. It’s likely more challenging to consider their origins, and to recognise these forms inside us and in intimate connections, in the dynamics of our minds.

Yet persistence pays off. When I put my jogging shoes again post a long hiatus, venturing out without aiming for bodily change, or to eliminate a sensation, or to improve a 5km time, {it