🔗 Share this article

I just got back from jogging. It’s shocking to write those words. I think it could have been a decade since the previous time. But I recently discovered that I have somewhat raised cholesterol, and the recommendation was to perform intense workouts on a consistent basis.

It’s the initial instance in my life that the driving force to exercise has been my physical health. In my youth, I exercised because I aimed to lose weight. I’ve also run to manage feelings of anxiety – I was just running away from the anxiety, not addressing it. At other times, I ran because I wanted to enhance at running. It signified the definition to me then to build an improved existence.

Exercising with new motivation at present sparked reflection about the approaches I’ve related with my body throughout my life and the way it’s evolving as I transition from early adulthood to middle age. I don’t think I’ve valued my own body, not deep down. I’ve appreciated it solely for its functions and the objectives it served me: seeking approval; dodging sentiments; running a faster 5K run. Previously, I failed to grasp that my body represents me, it is my existence, instead of an instrument for achievements.

A lot has been discussed over the centuries about the split involving physical and mental aspects – which it’s reassuring to know, I won’t summarize now. What has struck me most intriguing is Sigmund Freud’s view that mind and body are developmentally integrated from birth, because physical development demands psychological development and vice versa. A baby’s corporeal feelings – for example the corporeal experience of hunger – drive the brain to build the capacity to recognise hunger as a sensation that can be sated by nourishment; and the psychological solace and fulfillment consistently provided by repeated nourishment feeds the young mind just as the milk nourishes them bodily. So too psychological experiences – for instance the wish to stand up and grab an object, and the persistence to try again and again – are the reason and method muscles grow stronger. Starting at birth, our body and mind are interlinked in mutual development as unified as a spiral.

However It’s become clear, during therapy with my analyst, that my mind and body can be in an alternate dynamic – one less integrated and increasingly manipulative. My mind might utilize my physique to store and manifest aspects that my psyche deems unacceptable or intolerable. In my sessions we’ve become aware that exist particular emotional states that I am afraid are too much for me; rather than experiencing them psychologically, I subconsciously force them into my body, where they get stuck as physical symptoms.

I used to get this with indigestion – which had nothing to do with my diet, but acted as a form of bodily backlash of the harsher emotions I was unable to process in my mind. This wasn’t an intentional act, but once it was raised to awareness in sessions, and my dread and insecurity and anger and terror were experienced and expressed verbally instead of transformed into physical sensation, it disappeared. I rarely suffer with digestive issues currently.

The toughest period I had this intense reflux, I was unable to sleep for multiple consecutive nights. I felt I was slipping away from my mind. I went to the GP, who organised various scans and tests, but no issues were found physically wrong. It was another doctor who told me that the root could be psychological. My psychoanalyst agreed. I was surprised, but I also knew it was accurate.

Whenever someone endures a corporeal problem, they might feel insulted at the suggestion that it could have a mental root. They might feel like disrespect, hearing that their illness is fabricated. Naturally that does happen – people can have their pain dismissed or wrongly assessed. But in some cases it could be that the physical symptoms are real – no question – and the cause is mental, the inner mind utilizing the physical self to manifest some pain or anger or whichever sentiment the conscious self fails to handle. Occasionally, it’s easy to think our feelings is only valid if manifested as bodily symptoms. We persistently neglect our minds on a personal level, in social contexts and culturally; how else can we allow the appalling elimination of psychodynamic psychotherapy through health services?

Life lessons have shown me that an improved existence cannot be built if we remain trapped without realization in ways of relating, internally and with others, that are rooted in disrespect, use and dealings. These dynamics tend to be simpler to recognize “externally” in broader culture. It’s likely harder to think about their origins, and to recognise these shapes personally and in intimate connections, in the workings of our psyches.

Yet it’s worth persevering. After donning my running shoes once more post a long hiatus, going outside not for physical improvement, or to eliminate a sensation, or to improve a 5km time, {it