Pain and State of Mind

Some would say that pain and state of mind are inextricably linked. Who can truly disagree? Today I have seen a patient who pretty well underlined this.

This patient was attending for treatment of symptoms affecting her neck sustained in a road traffic accident and had been getting progressively better. She attended for her last treatment session and was barely able to tolerate any manual massage pressure whatsoever. This was despite the fact that over the past few weeks the treatment she was given had to be of a fairly strong nature in order to achieve the desired improvement.

A few days prior to attending for her last treatment her father had passed away after a long illness.

The lady had been resting from her normal occupational duties over the previous week and so had experienced less physical demands than she would normally. The only thing of note was the fact that she had suffered a major psychological trauma in the death of her father.

I have no doubt that it was this that was responsible for the alteration in her presentation and ability to withstand manual massage techniques.

I am certan that as the state of mind changes with time she will be back on the road to recovery once again.