Gastric and duodenal ulcers are classic psychosomatic diseases. This means that the influence of psychological factors on the occurrence and development of this disease is recognized by most researchers. Each psychosomatic disease, including peptic ulcer, basically has specific psychological characteristics of the individual.
The development of peptic ulcer of the stomach and duodenum occurs with an increase in the tone of the sympathetic nervous system, when exposed to any stress factors. Such a disease can be represented as an integral characteristic of disturbances in the system of personality traits, neuroendocrine regulation, and the executive visceral system of the digestive organs.
Back in 1932, one of the founders of psychosomatic medicine, Franz Alexander, wrote: “... Fear, aggression, guilt, frustrated desires, being suppressed, lead to chronic emotional stress that disrupts the functioning of internal organs. Because of the complexity of our social life, many emotions cannot be freely expressed through voluntary activity, but remain repressed and ultimately misdirected. Instead of being expressed through voluntary innervations, they affect autonomic functions such as digestion, respiration, and circulation.”
The coryphaeus of Soviet medicine, V. N. Myasishchev, believed that peptic ulcer disease is nothing more than a manifestation of a neurasthenic syndrome due to intrapersonal conflicts. This is manifested as a result of the contradiction between the capabilities of a person and the overestimated demands placed on himself more often.
Psychologists have identified the following most common character traits of "ulcers":
1) People prone to the appearance of gastric and duodenal ulcers experience constant fear in their abilities. They are afraid of being unappreciated by parents, colleagues, teachers.
2) Patients lack self-esteem, manifesting themselves in pleasing everyone.
3) The presence of an internal conflict between the need for protection and the desire to be independent.
4) They are envious, and at the same time, they are ashamed of this feeling, trying to suppress it.
5) They have low self-esteem, expressed through vulnerability, shyness, coupled with increased demands on themselves. Initially, they set impossible tasks for themselves.
6) Have a hypochondriacal personality type. Adjust to someone's expectations.
7) Patients have a fairly high level of personal anxiety, which may indicate the consideration of events, situations, relationships and activities as potentially dangerous, threatening, difficult to solve or not solved at all. Patients find it difficult to cope with new and difficult situations, which in turn narrows perception and awareness, limiting the ability to "go beyond" the ordinary.
8) The suppression of destructive impulses and the disruption or loss of key relationships, accompanied by feelings of hopelessness and despair, can also be causative factors of the disease. These sufferers also show subconscious tendencies to dependence, they also try to compensate them with a desire to give something in exchange for a desire to receive. However, they lack the confidence to realize these ambitions. When they lose hope of achieving what they are striving for, there is a violation of intestinal activity.
Psychotherapy aimed at resolving psychotrauma and internal conflicts, at expanding consciousness and habitual ideas about the world and about oneself, at realizing one’s difficulties and finding new ways to solve them, helps to reduce chronic stress and, as a result, more rapid scarring of the ulcer and reduce symptoms (nausea). , heartburn and weakness).
Effective, in our experience, is the combination of psychotherapy with transcranial electrical stimulation (TDCS), contributing to the normalization of overexcited parts of the brain associated with the intestines.
A promising treatment for ulcer inflammation and pain is infusion treatment with ketamine. Visceral (GI) pain has been shown to be associated with NMDA receptors, which are effectively affected by ketamine. It has also been found that this drug is able to reduce visceral hypersensitivity. Therefore, in peptic ulcer, it is advisable to use ketamine therapy in conjunction with psychotherapy and TES.
Combining psychotherapy with ketamine infusions, transcranial electrical stimulation, rehabilitation of the brain "Neurohelp", body-oriented therapy and art therapy, a significant improvement in the health of patients can be achieved.