Psychosomatic illness refers to physical conditions that are caused or aggravated by emotional and psychological factors. In these illnesses, stress, anxiety, depression or other negative emotions influence the body, causing real physical symptoms such as headaches, gastrointestinal problems, hypertension and muscle pain, among others. Although the symptoms are physical, their origin is in the mind and emotions.
Human beings have a whole range of emotions that are expressed in different ways, from love and affection to anger and aggression. It could be said that emotions are the language that the body has to communicate about its needs, about whether they are satisfied or not.
When, for various reasons, we feel obliged to repress the expression of certain emotions, the organism is deprived of the natural channel for its emotional expression. It then seeks other ways to express them and this often occurs through the body in the form of tension, pain or psychosomatic illnesses.
On an allegorical level, it could be said that emotions have to flow like a river. When a dam is built, the river is blocked but exerts a pressure that grows as the amount of water impounded increases. In the end, the dam overflows or breaks due to the forces of the water and uncontrolled streams or floods are created in places other than the natural river bed. In the human organism, these streams would be equivalent to somatizations or psychosomatic illnesses.
