Rare Gene Translates Social Rejection into Physical Pain
August 18th, 2009 |
A GoodTherapy.org News Headline
Basic responses to social rejection are experience throughout life, and may contribute to a negative self-image or feelings of depression in some people. But in others, such responses may be secondary to a physically manifested hurt. A study recently performed at the University of California in Los Angeles has suggested that people with a rare gene may not only experience a greater amount of physical pain when hurt, but may actually feel physically affected by social rejection. The researchers found increased brain activity in areas associated with pain in participants with the gene, and have concluded that rendering emotional pain physically may have encouraged more closely-knit societies in early human evolution.
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5 comments so far
WOW! this has tremendous implications for psychotherapy treatment. I’m curious about how common this gene is. I’ll have to read the report.
So does this mean that this is yet another thing that people can look at before having their kids, to see if they are carriers of this gene and whether or not they could pass them along to them?
This makes so much sense to me. For example I know that when I am really stressed out I feel physically ill, sick to my stomach and horrible headaches. Why would it not be true that feeling emotionally rejected could cause the same types of feeling in people? There are so mnay times that we dismiss emotional goings on in our lives, only to find that they cannot be ignored, they just manifest themselves in different ways, in this case physically. What a wonderful piece to show and hopefully even prove to some that whole health is what we need to be focusing more on.
Is the opposite true as well? My husband has extremely high pain tolerance. Both emotional and physical pain.
Do you think that this could just become an excuse for some people, like oh I have this gene so I hurt all of the time?