Coping With Pain And Overcoming It Makes Us Stronger

Pain is one of the emotions inherent in our  existence. From the moment we are born, we are exposed to the inconsistency that life itself means and to the frustration that arises from the dissatisfaction of our desires. Therefore, knowing how to face pain and move on is essential to move in a degree of suffering that we can assume.

In the first instance, it is essential to differentiate  between pain, sadness or melancholy. Making this distinction is essential, since they are often used interchangeably in colloquial language, when they are not synonymous.

Does facing the pain suppose sadness or melancholy?

Sigmund Freud, father of Psychoanalysis, proposes an important distinction between concepts, since although they are similar, or at least the collective imagination equates them, they are dissimilar. Precisely, in his masterpiece ” Duel and melancholy “, he tries to establish the points in which both concepts are distinguished.

Thus, literally, Freud affirms that “ Grief is the reaction to the loss of a loved person or an abstraction that takes its place as an ideal, freedom, etc. As a result of identical influences, in many people melancholy is observed instead of mourning ”.

Certainly, Freud assures that grief is an affect that does not have to be pathological and that is suffered by the subject who has lost the loved object. However, one establishes itself as a way of feeling that responds to absolutely normal parameters, while melancholy would be more related to the pathological.

Both psychic processes present similar characteristics, except for one fundamental point. The two states share pain, lack of interest in the outside world, and a lack of inclination to dress a new love object.

However, in melancholy there is a disturbance of the feeling of pain, adding to a harassment towards the Self, which does not happen in the course of a normal mourning; where an impoverishment of its integrity occurs.

Coping with pain allows you to know yourself in a comprehensive way

Emotional life is directly linked to the human psyche and, therefore, has a direct or indirect impact on physical or biological well-being. As a general rule, today’s society, and the individual in particular, underestimates the importance of emotions.

As soon as a person has a symptom, such as insomnia or depression, they want it to disappear as if by magic and resort to a drug that solves their life. However, it is very difficult for the symptom to be absent, at least permanently, if psychoanalytic work is not done in a comprehensive way.

Precisely, medicine, more specifically psychiatry, reinforces the behavioral theory of stimulus – response to eliminate any kind of symptomatology. The idea is that with the appropriate medication, any patient could return to their daily routine, because the symptom, at least for a time, disappears or is significantly attenuated.

However, medication in many cases is just a thick carpet that covers the symptom, the manifestation, leaving the ultimate cause of the picture to remain latent.

Thus, when the medication is withdrawn it reappears and even, although the medication is maintained, it can take other forms to make itself visible, damaging the quality of life of the person.

Certainly, the symptom is an informative element that something wrong is happening in the psychic life of the subject. In this way, by silencing the voice, we will only lose information about what is happening and it will be more difficult to intervene on it. Hence, a good clinical evaluation is so important before starting any type of intervention. 

In this way, psychotherapy offers us the opportunity to establish new parameters to see the world from a new perspective. A new point of view that implies less pain and more satisfaction or fulfillment.

Let’s think that all our suffering has a significant degree of subjectivity, therefore, it is the person who ultimately knows what really hurts. On the other hand, through his story, the psychologist will be in a position to understand what the unsatisfied desire represents as the source of his discomfort.