Assagioli presents how psychological forces affect the body and vice versa and presents many examples of it.
By Roberto Assagioli, from the Assagioli Archive in Florence. Doc. 20492. [i] Original Title: L’Azione del Morale sul Fisico e la Psicoterapia – The Action Of The Moral On The Physical And Psychotherapy. Translated and Edited with Notes by Jan Kuniholm
Abstract: There is an action of moral or psychic phenomena on physical phenomena and this is encouraging because psychotherapy can then prevent or eliminate the psychic causes of physical ailments. This action is broader and deeper than is normally understood. Classic conditioning by Pavlov is one example, but the scope of conditioning by psychic causes may include activity of digestion, heart, blood pressure, and ailments like arteriosclerosis, asthma and glysuria among other conditions, including Graves’ Disease. Emotions have an effect on the composition of nursing mother’s milk. The attitude of a wounded person has been shown to influence the rate of healing of wounds in warfare, and there is a clear relation of psychic causes and nervous disorders. In every illness physical and psychic causes are present in differing proportions. Physical suffering can aggravate emotions that may prolong and complicate the symptoms of the illness. The proportion of psychic influence in some disorders is so great that the skilled used of suggestion can provide a quick release. Effective cures of maladies with psychic origins cannot be made by chemical or physical remedies. A psychic wound needs a psychic healing, namely the beneficial use of psychotherapeutic methods.
The action of the moral[ii] on the physical is one of those many things which are admitted more or less by everyone, but which are not investigated in depth. The enormous significance of such things is not recognized, so that they remain sterile mental notions, or whose negative aspect is the only one considered; whereas one could avail oneself of them practically to one’s own and others’ incalculable benefit. This is particularly true of the action of the moral on the physical. Everyone admits it when conversation about it comes up, but then people stop there, or make it an excuse to justify their physical ailments. One often hears these phrases: “Such a person is wasting away and could not be otherwise, considering the passion that consumes him!” or “How do you expect him to be well with so many sorrows?”
There is a part of the truth in these and similar expressions; that is, the recognition that certain physical ills have moral causes. But there is also the erroneous and harmful side, that of considering such action of the psyche as something fatal and irretrievable, as if states of mind were not essentially plastic and changeable and we did not possess effective weapons to transform them, provided we make the effort.
Instead, given that such weapons exist, given that we have the power to profoundly alter our psyches, the realization that certain physical ailments depend on moral causes should encourage us. For either by eliminating those causes, or, if that is not possible, by preventing them from acting on the body by suitable means (psychotherapy), we can heal ailments corresponding to those causes. Given this, it is useful and appropriate to realize well that the action of the moral on the physical is much broader, intimate, and deeper than is generally understood.
Let us now start from a popular observation, from one of those seemingly insignificant little facts that are indicators of great laws, such as the falling of an apple that revealed to Newton the law of universal gravitation. Indeed, everything, when properly understood and deepened, is full of meaning: the minuscule reflects and reveals the immense in itself. Thus the fact that the sight of an appetizing food makes one’s mouth “water” points us to a most important law both scientifically and practically: that psychic[iii] events (such as visual sensations) can stimulate the secretion of given glands. And the reverse is also equally true: namely, that certain states of mind can inhibit or stop secretions. Like the salivary glands, so too the gastric glands are highly sensitive to psychic stimuli. Very demonstrative in this regard are the experiments done by the Russian psychologist Pavlov.[iv] He found that the mere sight of food was enough to produce an abundant flow of digestive juices in dogs, in which he had inserted a gastric fistula [for observation]. He went further: by associating the sight with an acoustic stimulus, he showed that, after some time, this indirect stimulus alone [i.e. the sound] was sufficient to bring about the secretion of gastric juice.
In people then, it is possible to make the mere image of food, evoked by suggestion, sufficient to stimulate the glands of the stomach. But there is more. Heyer[v] found that the very chemical composition of the gastric juice changed, depending on whether he had suggested the ingestion of meat, fats, or starchy food, etc. to the experimental subject The reverse is also true for the stomach: strong emotion is capable of suspending secretion or paralyzing movement, thus halting digestion.
In this connection Cannon, professor of physiology at Harvard,[vi] reported and endorses the statement that the majority of cases of indigestion are functional and due to psychic causes, so much so that they are called “emotional indigestion.”
The same can be said for bowel function. It is well known how fear and other emotions are often the cause of bowel disorders. Less well known perhaps to the public is that mucomembranous enterocolitis and spastic constipation are often determined by mental and moral factors. This is authoritatively confirmed by a well-known scientist, Professor Devoto of the University of Milan.[vii] In fact, he attaches great importance to moral and psychic factors and writes among other things, “Among the causes of gastrointestinal pathology, I include reading newspapers and letters, price lists, securities quotes from stock exchanges, etc. during meals.”
No less obvious are the psychic influences on the circulatory system. Indeed, emotions determine:
- The quickening or slowing of heartbeats and the irregularity of their rhythm, to the point of producing persistent forms of nervous heart palpitation.
- Vaso-motor disturbances, such as the flushing of shame, the pallor of fear, etc.
- Increased blood pressure. This, if sudden and intense, such as is aroused by an access of anger, can go so far as to cause a cerebral hemorrhage in predisposed individuals. There are also sudden deaths caused by severe grief or great joy. On the other hand, if [high blood pressure] is protracted due to worry or long-lasting moral travails, it constitutes one of the determining causes of atherosclerosis.
Similarly, Senator Marchiafava[viii] explicitly places among the causes of arteriosclerosis “the work of the mind” — not the quiet serene work of so many illustrious scientists and writers who work into advanced old age, but tumultuous psychological activity accompanied by anxieties, worries, disappointments, greed for profit, strong passions, emotions, etc.
Turning to the respiratory system, I will mention the many cases of nervous asthma whose determinant is strong psychic disturbances, and especially repressed emotions. Organic cell replacement is also influenced by psychic factors. There is, for example, emotional glycosuria.[ix] Smillie[x] was able to find that of nine medical students who normally had no sugar in their urine, four of them had glycosuria after a difficult examination, while after an easier examination only one had it.
Also, the influence of emotions is very strong on the composition of [mother’s] milk and consequently on the health of the infant. Pediatrician Dr. Biagini writes, “Violent emotions or passions (spite, displeasure, anger, fright, fury) instantly change the proportion of the constituents of milk: milk may become toxic to the point of producing colic, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, paralysis, sometimes violent convulsions, and even cases of instantaneous death.”[xi] These painful facts give clear experimental evidence that states of mind produce real poisons in the body. No one will miss the enormous practical significance of this finding. Indeed, the authors cited above recommend that the nursing mother who has experienced such emotional disturbances should refrain from giving milk for twelve and even twenty-four hours.
Just as the externally secreting glands are affected by states of mind, so too are the various internally secreting glands. For example, Cannon found that under the action of physical pain, anger, etc., the secretory activity of the adrenals increases. Various authors have also pointed out the harmful action of emotions in patients with Basedow’s disease,[xii] which, as is well known, involves a dysfunction of the thyroid gland. Given the great importance and intimate functional interdependence of the internally secreting glands, it is easy to understand how profoundly emotions can modify the conditions of the organism and contribute to producing multiple morbid states occurring within ourselves.
I will then mention how the existence of a psychogenic fever is now generally admitted, and recall the self-observation of our physiologist Angelo Mosso[xiii] who, after the announcement of news that gave him pleasure, noticed a nine-tenths [degree] increase in his own temperature.
Even physiological activities seemingly furthest removed and independent of psychic life, such as the course of wounds and fractures, are influenced by the moral state. An American surgeon who had directed a Red Cross hospital during the Balkan Wars[xiv] asserted that the wounds of the victors healed more rapidly than those of the vanquished. Dr. Torre of the Ospedale Maggiore in Milan, in his article “Treatment and Outcomes of Fractures of the Vertebral Body,” published in Policlinico, writes: “The investigation of the progress of patients with fractures shows what an enormous importance the psychological and environmental factor has for complete healing, and how it is absolutely necessary to eliminate any worries from the mind of the injured person and give him the security of recovery.”
I have not yet named nervous and mental illnesses, but it is evident that if psychic causes can profoundly disturb organic functions through their action on the nervous system, all the more reason that they will be able to produce disturbances in the nervous system itself and upset psychic functions and their balance. These facts have been fully confirmed by the success of attempts to experimentally cause remarkable physiological changes by psychic means. Several authors attest to having succeeded in provoking real blisters on the skin by suggestion. For example, William James once produced a red star on the neck of a subject; and Konstant claims to have caused fever rises, temperature drops and a change in the amount of hydrochloric acid contained in gastric juice by suggestion.[xv] Another body of evidence is provided by the so-called maternal “cravings,” and in general by the impressions reported by mothers during gestation, which can determine even structural changes in their children.
At this point I think it is appropriate to make it very clear how the recognition of the existence and importance of the action of the moral on the physical should not lead to a denial of the importance of certain physical cures, whether endogenous and constitutional, or exogenous and coming from the external environment; nor should it lead to a neglect of the action that physical conditions have on moral states. One fact does not exclude the other; indeed both rest on the same truth: the intimate relationship and the continuous actions and reactions that take place between psyche and body.
Therefore in practice it can be said that in every illness physical causes and psychic causes are associated and intertwined in different proportions and in a way that is often very complicated. The task of a wise physician is to recognize how much depends on one and how much on the other factor on a case by case basis, and to provide accordingly, without preconceived notions either in one direction or the other.
If we now insist on the psychic or psychological factor, it is not because we do not want to take due account of the physical one, but because in general the former is less recognized and considered. It is not necessary to say that a moral factor is to be found in every illness. Indeed, the very fact of falling ill in itself causes trauma, more or less. Physical suffering, concern for one’s state, for interrupted activities, for the various consequences of various kinds that may ensue, the impatience of enforced inertia, are all facts that arouse emotions of a depressive nature, which often disturb sleep, digestive functions, etc., and to accentuate and complicate the symptoms of the illness itself.
Other evidence of entanglement between mental and physical causes and conditions are as follows:
- Following moral shocks or psychic traumas, the morbid repercussions more often occur in the organs and functions that are constitutionally weak and already affected by physical causes and thus constitute the point of least resistance.
- The psychogenic fixation and accentuation of an originally physical disorder is frequent. For example, there are many cases of dyspepsia that would [normally] heal quickly, but instead are aggravated and fueled by psychic causes. A true “vicious circle” is formed.
Something similar occurs in cases of rheumatic and joint pains which have immobilized a limb for some time. A witty American writer compared this illusory bondage with that of a horse which is accustomed being tied up and continues to stand still even when the rope that held it captive is untied. This shows how inertia and fear of pain cause the patient to continue not to use the limb even when he could do so very well. Some years ago, when the Coué[xvi] came to Rome, I witnessed the quick release of some of these false paralytics and lame people.
Sometimes an intense moral pain, a complex inner crisis, can even make one seek and then produce physical evil, as a diversion, a defense, or as a justification. This autogenetic mechanism has been called “escape in disease” by Freud. Sometimes the patient becomes clearly aware of it. For example, a young lady whom I used to treat several years ago wrote with great sincerity, “I needed physical suffering — I felt the need for an external evil that would free me from that very painful feeling.” Most of the time the patient does not realize at all that his physical ailments were sought and created by him. It was an entirely subconscious play of forces of which the conscious personality of the patient was an involuntary victim. Therefore, it is unfair and inappropriate on the part of those who become aware of it to hold it against the patient. The person should be properly enlightened and helped to free himself, not accused of deception or ill will.
If psychic factors can exert such an important action of a harmful character, it is easy to understand how they can on the other hand exert other effects of a favorable, beneficial nature. If an illness depends to some extent on psychic or psychological causes then the cure will have to be correspondingly psychic in nature. In fact, an effective and radical cure is had only when we succeed in removing the origin, the cause that produced and makes the evil persist. Hence it is futile to hope that remedies of a chemical or physical nature can eliminate pathological causes of a completely different kind, and over which they have no influence whatsoever.
In this regard we can make our own the statement and action of Parsifal[xvii] regarding the wound of Amfortas:[xviii] “Only a weapon is valid, and the wound is closed only by the spear that opened it.”
And such a weapon is in our case, the methodical, expedient, wise use of beneficial psychic and psychological influences; i.e. Psychotherapeutic Methods.
Notes:
[i] A similar text is found in a hand-written essay, Doc. #20657, and an earlier typed manuscript, Doc. #23100, which was a corrected text from Lesson X of March 18, 1934 at the Istituto; but this translation is based upon Doc.#20492. —Tr.
[ii] The Italian word “morale” is here translated as “moral” or “the moral,” but the Italian as Assagioli uses it has a broad sense of indicating spirit, emotion, sense of right and wrong, or morale in the English sense of sense of self or confidence, as well as “states of mind.” As an adjective the term suggests “behavioral” as well as “ethical.” —Tr.
[iii] The word “psychic” is used in its broadest sense, including all phenomena of “the psyche,” including psychological and common “psychic” phenomena. —Ed.
[iv] Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) as a Russian experimental neurologist and physiologist known for his discovery of classical conditioning in experiments with dogs. —Ed.
[v] Possibly a reference to the work of German analyst Gustav Richard Heyer (1890-1967), one of whose books, Praktische Seelenheilkunde (Practical Soul Medicine) was in Assagioli’s library. —Ed.
[vi] Walter Bradford Cannon (1871-1945) taught physiology and comparative anatomy at Harvard. —Ed.
[vii] Luigi Devoto (1864-1936) was a Professor of occupational diseases at the Clinical Institute in Milan. He was known for his studies of pellagra, a disease involving mental disturbance and gastrointestinal disorders. —Ed.
[viii] Ettore Marchiafava (1847-1935) was an Italian physician, pathologist and neurologist who discovered the parasital cause of malaria and pioneered other medical work. He was elected to the Italian Senate in 1913. —Ed.
[ix] glycosuria: the presence of abnormal amounts of sugar in the urine. —Ed.
[x] Wilson G. Smillie, MD (1887-1971) was an American physician and epidemiologist, professor at Harvard Medical School and Rockefeller Institute, was known for his work in public health. —Ed.
[xi] Probably quoted in L’igiene del bambino (The Hygiene of the Infant) by L. Concetti, a note of which is found in the Assagioli Archives Doc. #20343.—Ed.
[xii] Basedow’s Disease, more commonly known now as Graves’ Disease, a disorder that causes hyperthyroidism, is now thought to be an autoimmune disease that affects the thyroid gland. Causes of this disorder are thought to include stress and other internal factors.—Ed.
[xiii] Angelo Mosso (1846-1910) was an Italian physiologist who invented the first neuroimaging technique, called “human circulation balance,” which correlated mental activity with blood flow and pulse. It is considered a forerunner of modern fMRI and PET technology. —Ed.
[xiv] Balkan Wars were a series of conflicts between the Balkan states and the Ottoman Empire, and between those states, in 1912 and 1913. —Ed.
[xv] Sources of this statement are unknown, as is the identity of “Konstant.” —Ed.
[xvi] Èmile Couè (1857-1926) was a French psychologist who introduced a popular method of psychotherapy and self-improvement based upon suggestion and autosuggestion. He published his book Self-Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion in 1922. —Ed.
[xvii] Parsifal was the last opera by German composer Richard Wagner, premiering in 1882. It is a retelling of an aspect of the the legend of the quest for the Holy Grail.—Ed.
[xviii] Amfortas is the Grail King in Wagner’s opera, suffering from a painful wound that will not heal. He has a vision that only an “innocent fool” (Parsifal) who has “been made wise by compassion” can heal him by retrieving the spear that caused the wound. A touch from the spear in Parsifal’s hands effects the healing, and Parsifal becomes the new Grail King. —Ed.
[i] The Italian word “morale” is here translated as “moral” or “the moral,” but the Italian as Assagioli uses it has a broad sense of indicating spirit, emotion, sense of right and wrong, or morale in the English sense of sense of self or confidence, as well as “states of mind.” As an adjective the term suggests “behavioral” as well as “ethical.” —Tr.
[ii] The word “psychic” is used in its broadest sense, including all phenomena of “the psyche,” including psychological and common “psychic” phenomena. —Ed.
[iii] Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) as a Russian experimental neurologist and physiologist known for his discovery of classical conditioning in experiments with dogs. —Ed.
[iv] Possibly a reference to the work of German analyst Gustav Richard Heyer (1890-1967), one of whose books, Praktische Seelenheilkunde(Practical Soul Medicine) was in Assagioli’s library. —Ed.
[v] Walter Bradford Cannon (1871-1945) taught physiology and comparative anatomy at Harvard. —Ed.
[vi] Luigi Devoto (1864-1936) was a Professor of occupational diseases at the Clinical Institute in Milan. He was known for his studies of pellagra, a disease involving mental disturbance and gastrointestinal disorders. —Ed.
[vii] Ettore Marchiafava (1847-1935) was an Italian physician, pathologist and neurologist who discovered the parasital cause of malaria and pioneered other medical work. He was elected to the Italian Senate in 1913. —Ed.
[viii] glycosuria: the presence of abnormal amounts of sugar in the urine. —Ed.
[ix] Wilson G. Smillie, MD (1887-1971) was an American physician and epidemiologist, professor at Harvard Medical School and Rockefeller Institute, was known for his work in public health. —Ed.
[x] Probably quoted in L’igiene del bambino (The Hygiene of the Infant) by L. Concetti, a note of which is found in the Assagioli Archives Doc. #20343.—Ed.
[xi] Basedow’s Disease, more commonly known now as Graves’ Disease, a disorder that causes hyperthyroidism, is now thought to be an autoimmune disease that affects the thyroid gland. Causes of this disorder are thought to include stress and other internal factors.—Ed.
[xii] Angelo Mosso (1846-1910) was an Italian physiologist who invented the first neuroimaging technique, called “human circulation balance,” which correlated mental activity with blood flow and pulse. It is considered a forerunner of modern fMRI and PET technology. —Ed.
[xiii] Balkan Wars were a series of conflicts between the Balkan states and the Ottoman Empire, and between those states, in 1912 and 1913. —Ed.
[xiv] Sources of this statement are unknown, as is the identity of “Konstant.” —Ed.
[xv] Èmile Couè (1857-1926) was a French psychologist who introduced a popular method of psychotherapy and self-improvement based upon suggestion and autosuggestion. He published his book Self-Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion in 1922. —Ed.
[xvi] Parsifal was the last opera by German composer Richard Wagner, premiering in 1882. It is a retelling of an aspect of the the legend of the quest for the Holy Grail.—Ed.
[xvii] Amfortas is the Grail King in Wagner’s opera, suffering from a painful wound that will not heal. He has a vision that only an “innocent fool” (Parsifal) who has “been made wise by compassion” can heal him by retrieving the spear that caused the wound. A touch from the spear in Parsifal’s hands effects the healing, and Parsifal becomes the new Grail King. —Ed.
[i] A similar text is found in a hand-written essay, Doc. #20657, and an earlier typed manuscript, Doc. #23100, which was a corrected text from Lesson X of March 18, 1934 at the Istituto; but this translation is based upon Doc.#20492. —Tr.
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