WHY PSYCHOLOGICAL TREATMENTS FOR PHYSICAL DISEASE?
To understand how various factors affect chronic pain, it is helpful to understand how various environmental influences affect our bodies in everyday, normal functioning. These influences are easier to understand if they are separated into three categories. There are 1) physical, 2) chemical and 3) psychological factors that affect bodily functioning. Some medical scientists have suggested that we think of the human body as functioning in specialized “states.” These states consist of certain bodily “configurations” which allow people to successfully adjust to changes in their environment. For example, we all have certain body states for sleeping, eating, conversing or any number of different activities. People are born with a certain number of “preset” states and develop others as they are needed for survival or adaptation to the environment. Each of these states consists of specific neurological (chemical), psychological and physical factors. Together these factors form what scientist
