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I have empathy for the physical and psychological burdens you must Psychosomatic Herniated Disc Pain written by an actual recovered dorsopathy patient.
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A strange thing happens to me. When someone, without my expecting it,
shows me or tells me about a physical wound or pain they have suffered
(a burn, a cut or scrape, a fall, an unwelcome piercing), something in
my pelvis/gut tightens involuntarily and I feel a momentary pang of
pain. It releases immediately. It's almost like being tickled: it only
happens when I'm not expecting it. I have no problems with the sight
of blood or tending wounds or looking at other gross stuff when I'm
expecting to do that. It has to be psychosomatic. I'm just wondering
whether there's a name for it and whether it's been described in
scientific or medical literature anywhere.
I'm definitely not talking about any "psycic" experience, and, though
those articles are interesting, what I feel is my own pain, not
someone else's. What I am feeling is also a physical sensation in my
body, rather than just a perception of pain. I think what I experience
must be akin to people who feel faint or weak at the sight of blood.
Is there a name for that effect in psychology or medicine?
glamazares...
After considerable research, I have come across terms which
fit the phenomena you describe. You have clarified that you
are not experiencing Sympathy Pain, based on an Empathetic
response to another's pain. You have also noted that you
are not affected by the sight of blood or wounds when you
are expecting to encounter them. By the way, the term for
the condition of those who faint at the sight of blood is
Syncope, or Vasovagal Syncope, which is a medical term for
fainting, or swooning, from the National Center for Emergency
Medicine Informatics site:
http://www.ncemi.org/cse/cse0101.htm
The term for a reaction to an unexpected stimulus is a
Startle Reflex, which, in and of itself, is normal.
However, an increase in this sensitivity can be a sign
of stress and burnout, as listed among the symptoms of
these conditions in this very comprehensive page on the
subject by Jerome Murray, Ph.D., on BetterYou.com:
"Tendency to become easily startled by inconsequential
stimuli."
Much more on the page:
http://www.betteryou.com/symptoms.htm
But the Startle Reflex alone does not describe the
unpleasant reaction you experience. This is described
by the term Disgust Sensitivity. This is a relatively
new area of study, but there is a fair volume of work
on the subject.
Disgust, in and of itself, is a survival mechanism,
as noted in this article titled:
'Disgust is good for you, shows study', on the
New Scientist website:
"'Disgust is a form of evasive action to protect us
against signs of threat, such as disease,' says Val
Curtis, who led the research. 'Women need to have a
higher level of sensitivity to infection or disease,
because they are the main carers of infants. And, as
reproductive ability declines with age, so does disgust.'"
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994563
The study of Disgust Sensitivity has taken the emotion
of disgust to new levels of scientific inquiry, which
is having an impact on the understanding of phobias
and mental illnesses like Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder,
with the realization that fear is not the only, or even
necessarily the predominant emotion of these conditions.
An excellent overview of this topic is an article
on MindPub.com, entitled 'Disgust and Fear are Closely
Related', by Vijai P. Sharma, Ph.D:
"...in fear, our heart rate, breathing rate, blood
pressure and skin temperature go up, saliva dries
up, muscles tense up along with other physical changes
that help us in the action of running. But in disgust,
the opposite happens. For example, instead of an
increase, heart rate, blood pressure and skin
temperature register a decrease. Saliva, instead
of drying up, is over produced."
[...]
"In the mental health field, excessive fear for such
things as blood, injection, injury, spiders, insects,
etc. is referred to as "specific phobias." Phobia is
another name for fear. However, phobia is not an
accurate term for this condition. A more accurate term,
at least in the majority of cases, may be disgust of
such things as blood, injection, injury, insects, etc."
Much more on the page:
http://www.mindpub.com/art365.htm
A more scientific treatise, titled:
'Intersection of disgust and fear: Normative and pathological
views'
by Sheila R. Woody and Bethany Teachman of Yale University
"Disgust. The word 'dis-gust' literally means bad taste.
Consistent with this literal translation, many theorists
have focused on food rejection and threat of oral
incorporation as the central premise around which the
disgust response is organized. Darwin (1965) defined
disgust as 'something revolting, primarily in relation
to the sense of taste, as actually perceived or vividly
imagined; and secondarily to anything that causes a
similar feeling, through the sense of smell, touch,
and even eyesight' (p. 253). Other theorists have
focused directly on the putative self-protective
feature of disgust (Douglas, 1966; Tomkins, 1963) and
on its connotation of debasement and corruption of
purity (Angyal, 1941; Freud, 1926; Miller, 1997).
Characterizing disgust as a defensive response raises
a natural parallel with fear, and some researchers have
proposed that disgust mediates fear of certain animals,
through a protective disease avoidance function
(Webb & Davey, 1992)."
Much more in the document file:
http://projectimplicit.net/nosek/bethany/Disgust&Fear.doc
Naturally, there are varying degrees of both phobias
and disgust sensitivity, and in both of these can be
moderated when the stimuli are expected. A paper has
been written, called:
'Voluntary emotion regulation among individuals high
and low in disgust', by Andrew R. Yartz, Kenneth P.
Lane, Andrew M. Baschnagel, & Larry W. Hawk, Jr. of
The University at Buffalo, SUNY
This article is listed on the following cached page
of an educational institution I cannot identify other
than the URL address of http://unix.wlu.edu/ since
the site is not working:
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:GH136vDQchgJ:unix.wlu.edu/~spr/past_mtng/2002/02posters1.pdf+%22disgust+sensitivity%22+unexpected
The cached pdf file of the Curriculum Vitae of one
of the authors, Andrew Robert Yartz, also notes that
he did his Ph.D. dissertation on the subject of
'Individual differences in disgust sensitivity and
voluntary emotion regulation: Subjective, physiological,
and behavioral responses to disgust and pleasant stimuli.'
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:9VoFXRvK0kwJ:www.uvm.edu/~psycahrl/ayvita.pdf+%22disgust+sensitivity%22+%22Voluntary+emotion+regulation%22
Unfortunately, the paper itself is not available.
From the University of Virginia's Disgust Scale Homepage:
"The Disgust Scale is a self-report personality scale that
was developed by Jonathan Haidt, Clark McCauley, and Paul
Rozin as a general tool for the study of disgust. It is
used to measure individual differences in sensitivity to
disgust, and to examine the relationships among different
kinds of disgust."
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~jdh6n/disgustscale.html
There are links on the page for:
The original 32-item Disgust Scale, from 1994:
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~jdh6n/disgust.scale.original.doc
The second 32-item Disgust Scale, from 2001:
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~jdh6n/disgust.scale.2.doc
The 8-item version of the second scale, from 2002:
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~jdh6n/disgust.scale.2.short.form.doc
And a webpage devoted to an article by the authors of
the scale, entitled:
'Individual Differences in Sensitivity to Disgust:
A scale sampling seven domains of disgust elicitors.'
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~jdh6n/dscalepap.html
Another article by the same authors, as well as
Lance Dunlop and Michelle Ashmore, entitled:
'Individual Differences in Disgust Sensitivity: Comparisons and
Evaluations of Paper-and-Pencil versus Behavioral Measures'
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~jdh6n/haidt.disgust-validation-ideal.pdf
One of the domains in which disgust sensitivity is
measured is 'body envelope violations', which describes
a sensitity to imagining or having the skin punctured.
This and other domains are discussed in an article called:
'The role of disgust sensitivity in blood-injury fears'
by Anne Schienle, Rudolf Stark & Dieter Vaitl, as
published in the International Journal of Psychophysiology,
1998, 30, 105, and available in this pdf file on the
homepage of one of the authors, Dr. Anne Schienle:
http://134.176.77.94/hp2/docs/Abst_Disgust.pdf
Or, you can view it in your browser in Google's cache:
http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:f2ZfBv-3mCYJ:134.176.77.94/hp2/docs/Abst_Disgust.pdf+%22disgust+sensitivity%22
I was pleased to learn this new terminology along with
you. Although I have worked in the field of mental health
for 20+ years, I had not heard of it until I researched
your question.
Please do not rate this answer until you are satisfied that
the answer cannot be improved upon by way of a dialog
established through the "Request for Clarification" process.
sublime1-ga
Additional information may be found from further exploration
of the links provided above, as well as those resulting from
the Google searches outlined below.
Searches done, via Google:
vasovagal syncope
://www.google.com/search?q=vasovagal+syncope
term "pit of the stomach" ~injuries OR ~wounds
://www.google.com/search?q=term+%22pit+of+the+stomach%22+%7Einjuries+OR+%7Ewounds
term reaction "sight of blood"
://www.google.com/search?q=term+reaction+%22sight+of+blood%22
"disgust sensitivity"
://www.google.com/search?q=%22disgust+sensitivity%22
"disgust sensitivity" "Voluntary emotion regulation"
://www.google.com/search?q=%22disgust+sensitivity%22+%22Voluntary+emotion+regulation%22
"disgust sensitivity" unexpected
://www.google.com/search?q=%22disgust+sensitivity%22+unexpected
"affective startle modulation"
://www.google.com/search?q=%22affective+startle+modulation%22
"Startle reflex" "disgust sensitivity"
://www.google.com/search?q=%22Startle+reflex%22+%22disgust+sensitivity%22 Psychology Today: Forgive to Live::
Face the pain. Experience the emotions that betrayal generates rather than deny or avoid them. what motivated his/her actions and to build empathy skills.
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THEOOZE - Articles: Viewing Article::
It creates for me a massive empathy for people and keeps me aware that people Originally from El Salvador, McManus is no stranger to pain.
http://www.theooze.com/articles/article.cfm?id=2023HOME |
Wow! This represents a fantastic amount of research and I'm grateful.
What a great gig you have!
Just one point of clarification, which you may pursue or not, based on
your interest: what you've already done is already worth what I bid
and more.
I'd like to hear more about what you described as Sympathy Pain, based
on Empathetic respons to another's pain. What I meant to rule out by
saying I was not having any 'empathic' reaction is any insinuation of
a psychic or ESP 'sharing' of pain; that's definitely not what I'm
talking about.
Though all these articles are absolutely fascinating, I think the
'disgust' trail might be going in the wrong direction. Several reasons
I think that: 1) I don't experience what I'm feeling as revulsion or
have a desire to pull away or feel a little ill or queasy, which seem
to be normal correlates with a 'disgust' response, nor do I have the
characteristic 'sneering' facial expression of disgust with the upper
lip drawn up. 2) The response I have can happen when someone is simply
describing something that happened to them that was painful ('I
slammed my finger in the door.'--a classic time when it happens). I
have no need to see or even imagine actual 'body-envelope-compromise'
in order to get this effect. In fact, I have no trouble with needles
or getting blood drawn or watching others get their blood drawn.
Also, and this is rather indelicate, I know, but I offer it in a
purely scientific spirit. I am male and, when I have this response,
one of the symptoms is that my testes draw up momentarily--in fact,
that may be the source of the pain I experience. I'm not even sure,
anatomically, what muscles or other reflexes are responsible for that
kind of response. Though I'm familiar with this response to stimuli
such as temperature changes or arousal, I've never heard of it as a
momentary 'shock' response.
Again, if you'd like to pursue this clarification because you're
interested, but I'm very impressed with the amount of work already put
into this. Thank you!
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