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Book 3: Why Chronic Illness is Not Psychological (Even if You Have a History of Trauma)

Veronique Mead, MD, MA · June 3, 2017 · 2 Comments

Chronic Illness is Not Psychological. The research that changes our understanding and why exercise, stress reduction and will power are not enough.
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Why chronic illness is not psychological even if you have a history of trauma

Book 3 of The Chronic Illness and Trauma Connection series 

“Chronic Illness Is Not Psychological” introduces the new science about risk factors for chronic illness, explains why it’s not in your head and not your fault, and tells you what you can do about your symptoms of chronic illness. It also acknowledges and validates how having a chronic illness can be traumatizing in and of itself.

Throughout the book I explain why common perceptions such as these are false:

  • chronic illness is all in your head (it’s not)
  • negative thinking causes chronic illness (our thoughts can affect symptoms but it’s not the underlying cause)
  • chronic illness is your fault (it’s not)
  • if you’re still sick it means you aren’t trying hard enough (as we know, this is not true either)
  • having a chronic illness means you’ve failed (I have often struggled with this one, but it’s false too)

Why Chronic Illness is Not Psychological

Excerpt

Book 3: Learn more about why chronic illness is not psychological and why the old psychological model of trauma is out of date.

In this ebook I explain why the belief that chronic illness is psychological – especially if you have a history of trauma –  is out of date. The research offers another, more comprehensive (and compassionate) view that draws from scientific research and gives you new options for working with symptoms.

If you have no history of trauma, these tools can help if having a chronic illness has been traumatizing for you (this is remarkably common).

The updated view offers new tools for healing and is not about exercise, positive thinking, cognitive therapies, increasing our will power or “trying harder.”

Introduction

Book 3 of The Chronic Illness and Trauma Connection series: Chronic Illness is Not Psychological Even If You Have a History of Trauma, and what you can do about it. #ME/CFS #chronic disease #trauma-informed #asthma

The concept of “trauma” is a loaded one. This is in part because it implies that symptoms are psychological or “all in our heads.” It also implies that we’ve experienced overtly recognizable, horrific events – which is not the case for many, myself included.

I wrote this book because the belief that the effects of trauma are entirely psychological causes harm.

I wrote it because this blaming perspective has been painful for me.

It has affected my experiences with a debilitating invisible illness; as a doctor and later as a therapist whose clients have been deeply shamed by perceptions that our / their chronic illnesses were psychological; and as a researcher sharing insights in the chronic illness community where the concept of trauma has conferred blame, shame and failure.

Our current understanding of trauma as a society and in medicine is that all of its effects, such as PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), anxiety, depression, addictions and other symptoms, are psychological.

The belief is that the effects of trauma are entirely and exclusively psychological.

And we live in a society where psychological symptoms such as anger, shame, fear, and depression are seen as signs of weakness and/ or a lack of self-control.

These beliefs imply that if trauma has played a role in someone’s life and they have a chronic illness, it means that their disease has psychological roots.

This view is inaccurate. 

Learn more about why – and what you can do about it – in my book.

Book 3 of the Chronic Illness and Trauma Connections includes a section on Getting a diagnosis and living with a chronic illness can be traumatizing
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Trauma It's Not Psychological

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Michael Allen says

    November 22, 2017 at 2:40 am

    Hello Veronique, I have had a gradually worsening ME/CFS for 14 years and have just read your very interesting blog on Health Rising. Now i am trying to download the third ebook but don’t see a link like
    there is with volumes one and two. Is this an oversight and can you help? Hopefully it is not my brainfog playing tricks on me.

    Reply
    • Veronique Mead, MD, MA says

      November 22, 2017 at 6:53 am

      Hi Michael,
      14 years is a long time. There are two links on this page for ebook 3 (in “image” 2 and image 5) but maybe they’re hard to see at the moment? I’ve sent it to you by email :-)

      Reply

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I love hearing from you. I read and review every comment before publishing it to make it visible to everyone. Your stories and insights make the writing and running of my blog so worthwhile. Although your email is required, it is not made public. You can use any name you wish. How do you work with your health? What has helped as you've become an expert in your own right? Does understanding the science of trauma make your journey any easier? Is there anything you need or wish I wrote about more?

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About Me

Hello! I'm Veronique Mead. On my blog I look at how chronic illness may be a natural response to one or more overwhelming experiences of threat. While this includes infections and toxins, I specialize in the role of psychological and physical trauma. Because the research - still overlooked and underestimated by medicine - has knocked my socks off.

 

Symptoms, it is turning out, may not be caused by mistakes our bodies are making but because our nervous systems have gotten stuck in states of fight, flight or freeze. Our bodies are our best friends and risk everything to help us survive. We are designed to recover or at least begin to heal from the effects of those survival strategies. I never knew any of this as a family physician or assistant professor. And it’s not in your head.

 

I've been testing these ideas with my own disabling disease for the past 20 years (I am much improved and get a little better every year). I share the research, challenges, why some things that seem so logical do not work for everyone (or make things worse), as well as my favorite 11 tools. This is so you can explore what might help you stabilize, improve or possibly even begin to reverse underlying drivers of your chronic illness too. For an overview with links to my most important posts, start here.

Awarded Top 100 Chronic Illness Blogs

#WEGO Patient Leader 2019 Finalist

#WEGOHealthAwards 2019 Patient Leader Finalist for Best in Show Blog Chronic Illness Trauma Studies Veronique Mead MD, MA

I and we - it feels so much like a WE - were among 6000 nominees for 15 categories of patient leader awards and one of 5 finalists for Best in Show Blog at the #WEGOHealthAwards. Learn more here.

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