When the Mind Affects the Heart

Cláudio Garcia Capitão

doi:10.4236/psych.2015.616210

Abstract

This article aims to theoretically discuss the relationship between psychosomatic symptoms and heart diseases. It was used, as research technique, the narrative literature review, unsystematic, which consisted in presenting an open theme. Many authors point out the influence of the mind over the body—especially through emotions, psychic conflicts, stress—as responsible for, or adjuvants in the etiopathogenesis of many diseases. Emotions are acute emotional reactions triggered by external or internal stimuli, usually accompanied by neurodegenerative, visceral, hormonal and vascular somatic reactions. The conclusion is that heart diseases are multidetermined, influenced by environmental, organic and psychodynamic conditions.

Highlights

The heart has a universal symbolic representation as the seat of emotions, life and death
When an individual is affected by a disease, emerge feelings such as fear, anxiety, and uncertainty, among others. When it comes to heart disease, it seems that such feelings are exacerbated, as if something valuable that the person has is injured and about to be destroyed (Tamagnini, 2014; Ismael & Oliveira, 2001)
In the psychoanalytic process, such contents are captured by the patient, knowing them gradually to the extent that the verbalization of which was suppressed is recovered

Summary

Introduction

The heart has a universal symbolic representation as the seat of emotions, life and death. When an individual is affected by a disease, emerge feelings such as fear, anxiety, and uncertainty, among others. When it comes to heart disease, it seems that such feelings are exacerbated, as if something valuable that the person has is injured and about to be destroyed (Tamagnini, 2014; Ismael & Oliveira, 2001). As a result of this integration, numerous studies, as performed by Blachy and Starr, found that the presence of psychological disorders, for example, in the cardiac surgery preoperative, influenced the risk of mortality (Botega, 2002)

Historical Aspects of Psychosomatic

Pierre Marty Ideas

The Comes and Goes of Heart

Coronaropathy and Depression

Final Considerations