Emotional pain: what is it and how to manage it?

Beyond the physical, there are also thousands of experiences that can make us suffer.

Feeling pain is something that nobody likes, being something unpleasant in spite of having an evolutionary adaptive origin and function. Probably when we think of pain we think of physical pain, wounds or illnesses.

But there is also another type of pain, which we have all felt at some point and which causes us great suffering: the emotional pain that can be caused by our experiences or the lack of them.. It is about this last type of pain that we are going to talk about in this article.

Emotional pain: what is it and what are its causes?

Although it is not something unknown to anyone, we call emotional pain to all that sensation of suffering or suffering generated at a psychic level without a physical reason for its appearance. The causes of emotional pain are purely mental, and generally refer to the experience of some type of aversive experience (its origin being generally environmental).

There is a practically unlimited number of situations that can generate this discomfort. Some examples that usually generate this type of pain are breakups and disappointments in love, fights and serious conflicts.The loss of abilities, the onset of a serious, chronic or even terminal illness or the death of people we love.

As with physical pain, emotional pain is to some extent functional and adaptive: it allows us to avoid painful situations or seek protection from aversive events. However, it ceases to be it ceases to be so when it becomes prolonged in time or permanent suffering or or permanent or exceeds personal capacities and/or resources.

It can generate physical alterations

Emotional pain is a type of ailment that is suffered at a psychic level, not appearing due to the presence of a medical disease (or at least not as a direct effect of the disease) or of some deteriorated or injured tissue or organ. However, the truth is that emotional and physical pain are linked, and the former can cause an affectation at a physiological level: it is possible that we may somatize our emotional suffering..

To somatize is to express through the body the discomfort of the suffering originated at a psychological level, being able to appear symptomatology in the form of pain experienced as physical in different parts of the body. This pain does not have an organic cause, or if there is a real disease this is not the cause of the pain or it should not be as intense as the one experienced. Of course, the pain is neither unreal nor feigned but it is perceived in reality.

Some of the different discomforts that emotional pain can cause are the presence of back pain, vomiting and diarrhea, febrile episodes, headaches and dizziness. Gastric problems or sexual dysfunctions such as Erectile Dysfunction or loss of libido may also appear. In very extreme cases, it could even cause blockages in basic functions such as speech or movement, and even the loss of sensibility in some extremities.

Managing emotional pain

Emotional pain and the suffering it generates are, as we have said, adaptive at first. We must allow ourselves to feel it, and not avoid or hide it, valuing it as something that may be quite natural as a response to a given situation. If someone dear to us dies or decides to cease their relationship with us, it is logical and normal to have a high level of suffering, a sad state of mind and a decrease in energy levels and the desire to do things. However, the passage of time and the arrival of new experiences will help us to gradually manage our grief and move on, overcoming it. and move forward, overcoming it..

It will be when we are unable to manage it, when it limits our life to a great extent or when we are unable to adapt to the new situation that it will be necessary to take some kind of action or to resort to some kind of professional help.

The first thing is to recognize the existence of emotional painThe first thing to do is to recognize the existence of emotional pain, validate it and take into account that each painful experience involves a more or less prolonged process to overcome it. It will also be necessary to identify the emotions that generate the suffering and the events that have provoked them, in case they are not already known.

After this, we must allow them to be expressed and to flow, trying to learn to modify them or even to introduce experiences that generate emotions incompatible with the suffering. The search for alternatives and solutions to the reasons for the suffering, or the experimentation of new experiencescan be of great help in overcoming pain.

A very important aspect to keep in mind in case of somatization: although it is possible to work on and even successfully treat the physical symptoms derived from it, a complete recovery will not be possible unless the cause of the emotional pain is treated, as it will probably reappear.