How often do you hear of a case where a doctor, upon establishing that a patient has a debilitating illness that doesn’t respond to conventional medical treatment, recommend that they undertake deep emotional development or trauma healing work?
I can tell you from personal experience, it doesn’t happen. Patients are left to figure this out for themselves, and usually don’t as the idea is considered so wacky.
> Patients are left to figure this out for themselves, and usually don’t as the idea is considered so wacky.
In my case it's not just the idea per se, it's also how people tend to talk about it. When I look for stuff about "trauma healing", I mostly get three things:
2) (Discussion of) narratives of childhood abuse, almost always with at least one identified individual abuser, and usually recognizing their experiences as abuse only in retrospect.
3) Recommendations for $IMPORTANT_BOOK about $THEORY by $VISIONARY_INVENTOR_OF_THE_THEORY (which invariably leads back to #1; see also Scott Alexander's "all therapy books" review [2])
So I'm not surprised that this isn't clearly established as a treatment modality among medical professionals. There seems to be a good chance that something real is there, but I don't see anything convincing in terms of a validated theory or proven method of treatment. I honestly get the impression of something vaguely cult-like about some of the exchanges on social media around this (idiosyncratic uses of jargon, revelation of hidden truths as a major theme, claims of suppression by the mainstream/establishment), which I think has put me off trying to learn more about it because the whole thing starts to seem a little shady (cf. chiropractic, homeopathy, faith healing, etc.). Do you have any recommendations for someone who's had this kind of experience with the idea?
[1] The Foundation For Human Enrichment, d.b.a. Somatic Experiencing® Trauma Institute, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to resolving trauma worldwide by providing state-of-the-art professional training and public education in Somatic Experiencing® (SE™)
Are you suggesting physicians are uncomfortable treating somatization disorders or something?
Your comment makes a lot of assumptions: 1) physician is qualified and competent. 2) diagnosis is correct. 3) treatment is optimal.
Those are all big assumptions. Misdiagnosis and inappropriate treatment are very, very common. "Placebo" prescriptions are common. Something like 25% of presentations at primary care are for medically unexplained symptoms.
However, any half-decent physician will attempt to address obvious psychopathology, if present. I don't believe it is commonly being ignored.
I don't know your case specifics, but in presence of objective abnormalities - there is obviously going to be hesitation to diagnose somatoform.
I can tell you from personal experience, it doesn’t happen. Patients are left to figure this out for themselves, and usually don’t as the idea is considered so wacky.