The Hidden Conflict Behind The Headache

The symptom of a headache can be the indicator of a discomfort that affects the body, but that comes from thought. Sometimes, instead of systematically taking a pain reliever, it is more efficient to try to find out how we feel, what we dislike or worry about.

Finding the psychic origin of the headache

Once the organic causes have been ruled out, that is, a pathology that affects an organ, and that the hygienic recommendations – sleep well, eat regularly … – prove to be insufficient to avoid it, it is advisable to inquire about this discomfort.

We have to ask ourselves not only about the pain that accompanies the headache, but about other suffering, the one that that headache represents.

Finding out what this other pain consists of involves locating the symptom, that is, finding the place and time when the headache occurs and asking ourselves about the details, often considered insignificant, that precede or surround its appearance.

Among the very varied answers that we can find, a displeasure frequently appears first , something that produces great frustration. But this complaint about what does not satisfy us is not enough to explain the appearance, almost always periodic, of the headache.

As we continue to investigate that uneasiness, we will find ourselves with a conflict : one or more moments in life when we are faced with a crossroads, a choice.

The problem is that this choice is forced, since, whatever alternative we choose, we will have had to choose only one, leaving the others aside.

Unconscious psychic conflicts are experienced as foreign bodies that, at times, have the effect on the “sufferer” of making him fear for a brain tumor. Other times they give the impression of having a swollen head, a sensation that is produced by the internal struggle between the energy exerted by these conflicts and a contrary energy that tries to defend itself against them.

As a corollary, vasodilation, vasoconstriction and muscle contractures are triggered, unexpected and involuntary actions of the organism that lead to headache.

Attack the cause

The investigation aimed at suppressing the malaise sometimes encounters very great pitfalls. Attacking it only organically, with medications, although it can produce momentary relief, never stable, only delays the solution, since the pain is an alarm signal that something is causing the discomfort and it is necessary to clarify it before suppressing it.

The fundamental obstacle is that the reasoning that would help us to decide remains unconscious, censored during the same account of those circumstantial details of the appearance of the headache.

This censorship also affects knowledge: we do not dare to know the causes because in this way, with our own ignorance, even if this implies that we do not free ourselves from them, we maintain the conditions in which they occurred: sometimes we love what makes us suffer the most.

It is a situation similar to that of mourning for someone we love: little by little we would have to leave behind the suffering for that person who is not there, but we prefer to continue in the pain because we believe that this does not leave us completely.

Release the pain with words

From the beginning of the treatment, of the cure by the word, the bodily symptoms without organic cause, such as headaches, can be understood as a silent complaint, apparently not directed at anyone, a way in which we express ourselves without having to speak of our discontent, of our rebellion or, simply, of our bewilderment.

Making this symptom speak is how we will liberate the forces occupied in producing it.

To achieve this, it only requires careful listening and consent to the physical affectation to surface through the word, since it is in it that we become entangled and, however, the only thing that will give us the keys to undo that mess.