Why does a person have a headache? In some cases, the headache is a symptom of some kind of organic disorder, but often such pain is a psychosomatic state. What causes a headache within the framework of psychosomatics, what provokes it? Once you understand the reason, you can find ways to get rid of the psychosomatic headache.
Headache as self-punishment
If a person experiences an acute sense of guilt, not always realized and accepted, it will begin to manifest itself through pain. In this case, the headache is a conditional self-punishment for some wrongdoing. Often these offenses are far-fetched, fictitious, imposed from the outside. Feelings of guilt can be traced back to childhood or formed in the context of a current situation.
Self-blame and, as a result, self-punishment through headaches is often characteristic of people with hypertrophied responsibility. Such individuals try to burden themselves with more than they can bear. At the same time, they unconsciously can “take away” guilt and shame from other people. Very often, such people feel a sense of awkwardness, shame, discomfort when someone else - sometimes a completely unfamiliar stranger - commits any offense. Unpleasant sensations can also arise in a person when he becomes a witness of a situation in which other people behave differently than the person himself could expect from them or how he himself would behave in the context of events. For example, these people often feel guilty, shame, and embarrassed when they watch videos where strangers portray themselves in a negative light or laugh at themselves. People who have a very strong framework of rules of conduct, who take even the smallest things very seriously, are prone to psychosomatic headaches.
Self-punishment headaches are typical of people with perfectionism. Unable to do anything perfectly, such a person begins to "gnaw" himself, blame himself for failures, thereby provoking headache attacks. For altruists, people with high self-esteem and increased demands on themselves, the world can often have a headache without specific organic reasons.
Headache as a protection against other pain
Certain thoughts, memories, or unreleased sensations can cause severe headaches. In this version, physical pain arises as a protection from emotional pain, from negative experiences.
A person can also have a headache within the framework of psychosomatic reasons in a situation where a large amount of auto-aggression (aggression directed at oneself) has accumulated inside the personality. So that a person does not harm himself under the influence of such an acute feeling, the psyche builds a barrier in the form of a headache, transferring the vector of attention to the head.
Headache as a refuge
Leaving or escaping into illness is a typical situation for the development of psychosomatics. Many people perform similar actions, as if trying to escape from themselves. A headache as a refuge is formed when a person does not want or is not ready to solve some issues, make some decisions, take any steps, or struggle with some problems.
Excessive flow of thoughts can cause headaches. When a person tries to think about many things at once, when thoughts along with emotions are besieging from all sides, at some point even the strongest and most persistent psyche "breaks down". Then the head begins to hurt, seemingly for no good reason.
A headache can be a refuge for parents who are very tired of the whims or increased activity of the child and want to "hide" from it. In childhood, a psychosomatic headache can be a "salvation" from going to school or kindergarten, from a situation when a child is told that he is already an adult and must make decisions for himself or be responsible for his actions. However, severe attacks of psychosomatic headache in a child can also be a signal that the little man does not have enough attention and care, that the child is tired of tension and conflicts in the family, etc.
Additional factors that form psychosomatic headache
- Fear of criticism and condemnation from the outside.
- The feeling that a person is underestimated, that all his works are left without due attention.
- Fear of being wrong about something.
- Headaches are often the result of shattered expectations that a person has built on their own.
- Long-term fixation on any memories or one issue.
- Constant stress.
- Psychosomatic headache develops against the background of latent depression.
- The feeling of dissatisfaction with life, partner, and oneself can be the reason why headaches in the evenings and no pills and teas help.
- Prolonged strong emotional, nervous, physical stress.
