The Role Of The Mind In Autoimmune Diseases

Autoimmune diseases remain a mystery to science. So far its symptoms and their development are known, but what causes them is unknown. Also, it must be said that most of them can be treated, but not cured. There are hypotheses about its cause, but none of them is fully proven. What is known is that the mind plays an important role in these pathologies.

There are relatively well-known autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, type 1 diabetes, and multiple sclerosis. Others are a little less recurrent, such as lupus erythematosus, autoimmune thyroiditis or Guillaime-Barré Syndrome, among others.

What is puzzling about autoimmune diseases is that they are the result of an attack by the body on itself. The organism behaves as if its own antigens were invading viruses, so it attacks them. In other words, the system for recognizing one’s own and that of others fails. This occurs in people who are perfectly healthy and medicine does not yet know why.

Autoimmune diseases and psychosomatic mechanisms

Science indicates that autoimmune diseases are the result of multiple factors, within which genetics play an important role. However, so far, there is no evidence that allows us to indicate its specific origin. On the other hand, it has been proven that the mind has a decisive role in such pathologies. Especially in how is the subjective experience that the disease produces.

Currently, autoimmune diseases are treated by most professionals as psychosomatic illnesses. This means that they are evils that have their origin in the mind and that take shape through the body.

There are different approaches to this. Some argue that it is an essential inability to verbalize emotions. Others indicate that it is a defensive response against emotional disintegration. It is also approached as a “bodily delusion”, whose antecedent is depression, or as a response to an insoluble conflict.

Whatever the approach, the truth is that the common point is the verification that there are realities that exist in people’s minds and that they find a way of manifestation through disease in the body.

Affects in autoimmune diseases

Autoimmune diseases set in motion a self-destruct mechanism. It is the body itself that stops recognizing the antigens that belong to it and begins to attack itself, as if what it carries within itself were threatening or dangerous.

The mind is so important in these processes that a new discipline has even emerged to deal with these phenomena. This is called psychoneuroimmunology. Thus, the truth is that autoimmune diseases are not only usually chronic, but they are also disabling and can lead a person to death.

The studies carried out suggest that those who suffer from these types of diseases generally have a high level of depression, but this is not always evident. In other words, it may even be someone who is cheerful and vital, but deep down, he carries a great dissatisfaction that, generally, he himself does not recognize.

Another common feature is a certain inability to recognize one’s own emotions. Either due to excessive intellectualization or rationalization of situations or because they are people who want to have everything under control and experience the affects as threats to their autonomy.

Towards a solution …

Autoimmune diseases are insidious and notably damage the quality of life. They are usually painful, difficult to assimilate and not very hopeful. The worst thing is that those who suffer from them go to the doctor in search of answers and, in general, they only find silences and palliative, not always effective, for their ailments.

Although this has been rethinking, the West has imposed the idea that mind and body are unrelated and sometimes even opposed realities. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that health and wellness are integral concepts, in which the physical plane is as important as the mental plane.

The way out for a person with an autoimmune disease is precisely to stop believing that it is a pill, a vitamin or some miraculous doctor that will restore their health. It is not that you should not go to these solutions, but that in your basic treatment there must be the intervention of a mental health professional.

All diseases have an emotional and mental component involved, but in autoimmune diseases this factor is absolutely decisive. The reluctance to treat their illness as a matter of the psyche is surely the fundamental reason why they find no relief for their physical sufferings.

A resistance that arises from the mistaken idea that one who suffers from a disease with a mental base is because he is not strong enough and is based on an even more mistaken idea: this pain is an invention of the patient.