The mind-body connection: Crohn's recovery with therapy

I used to take so much pride in my productivity. As a go-getter and trauma survivor, my life was fast-paced and pretty intense. My psychotherapeutic training spanned seven years, during which I juggled caring for two small children, a restaurant management job, attending evening and weekend classes and various volunteer placements. I survived on just four hours of sleep each night, striving to be the best mother, manager, student, and trainee I could be, in the hope of providing my children with a better start in life. I'd known what it was like to have nothing, to be fearful and alone. Those memories haunted me and spurred me on. Life was looking up, but it was intense. Eventually, my body said no.

In 2018, while driving home from a training course, I was suddenly struck by excruciating stomach pains. I had to pull over on the motorway, unable to reach the next exit, crying out in agony. I had lived in a constant state of burnout for a long time, but I wasn’t someone who got sick - at least, that’s what I told myself. When every waking moment is dedicated to pushing for a better life, sick days aren't an option. They're a privilege some cannot afford. I had mastered the art of masking and suppressing my needs for as long as I could remember out of necessity; pain simply wasn’t on my radar. But my body was delivering a message I could no longer ignore.

Over the next six months, I spent a total of seven weeks in hospital, unable to function. I collapsed unexpectedly and experienced severe bouts of sickness and diarrhoea, and even seizures. I lost significant weight, spending days - sometimes weeks - delirious on morphine, isolated in a side room, unable to care for myself. I underwent endless tests and treatments, which would stabilise me just long enough to be discharged, only to end up back in the hospital again. I was given chemo medication which left me with significant side effects, including hair loss and my nails falling out. I felt utterly at rock bottom, unable to be present for my children, clients, or any of my responsibilities.

My deteriorating health became a barrier to any meaningful life.

In 2019, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, an autoimmune condition I knew little about. This diagnosis marked the beginning of an eye-opening journey about the mind-body connection and ultimately my own trauma recovery. Crohn’s disease became my greatest teacher, a significant influence on my healing and that of many others throughout my work.

Fast forward to today: my diagnosis has transformed my life. While Crohn’s is a lifelong, progressive condition that I was advised would always require medication, regular blood tests and monitoring, consultant appointments and ultimately surgery, I have remained healthy and medication-free for four years thanks to my trauma recovery. I live a fulfilling and dynamic life, full of adventure, achievement, connection and all of the things I love doing.

In the past four years, I’ve experienced just one flare-up, and it’s clear to me why that happened: feeling so healthy and well led me to forget the vital message of my disease - never become complacent in caring for yourself. Do not forget, suppress or deny your own needs.

The link between mental and physical health

There is a substantial and ever-growing body of evidence which informs us about the mind-body connection, in particular the links between trauma/chronic stress and autoimmune diseases.

Chronic stress in our environment during childhood - whether it’s generational trauma, abuse, pressure born from societal contexts or something else - influences not just our emotional being, but our physiological being, too. It is a myth that there’s a split between mental and physical health, there’s just health - every system in the mind and body are interconnected.

When we repress our emotions and our natural fear responses, there is a distortion of our internal systems including the nervous system and immune system. Essentially, when we cannot fight the danger around us, our body may turn that mechanism inwards and begin to fight itself. When we are powerless, when we cannot say no, when fear, shame, stoicism, duty or a need to endure leave us in a persistent state of self-abandonment, the body must say no for us. Disease = dis-ease in the mind and body. There's only so much it can take.

This isn't to ignore genetic factors or attribute every disease to trauma. Rather to understand (as we now know from the study of epigenetics) that humans are significantly impacted by their environment - our genes respond to the level of safety in our environment which results in changes to our gene expression.

This isn't about blame or shame either. We live in a culture where many people are marginalised or oppressed due to race, gender, class and many other factors. Even the dominant narratives that we accept as ‘normal’ can be unhealthy for the mind and body, such as taking pride in constant productivity, denying or suppressing emotions or loyalty to people or corporations who harm us. Well-meaning parents can bring up children with trauma.

I believe the illusion of the mind-body split in our society causes a split within us. What we show and what we don't. What we see and what we don't. Our ‘shadow’ stuff becomes the driver for unconscious patterns which affect our whole being, our capacity for homeostasis - the well-being of our organism.

The gap between research evidence and medical practice

Within our medical system, there is what we call a science/practice gap. This means the scientific evidence to support the mind-body connection going back decades is not accurately presented during medical training, promoting a dualistic view of humans. 

We want quick standardised treatments and diagnoses due to systematic issues with time, money and resources. Medical ideology is heavily influenced by corporations that fund, publish and push research which will feed back into consumerism and their profits. 

We narrow our focus to treating the symptoms of the body rather than assessing an individual's whole self and personal contexts to get to the root of a problem. I have seen so many clients with a list of mental and/or physical ailments who have never been asked a few core questions which unlock the mystery and the messages of their pain. I feel so honoured to have witnessed this route to healing on countless occasions in my private practice.

Psychotherapeutic approaches can heal the mind and body

I could reel off a load of therapy spiel here about the various theoretical frameworks and their impact on mind-body health, but perhaps instead I'll share a couple of deeply personal moments from my own journey to recovery in the hope that it might inspire someone to consider a more integrated approach to healing. 

With an approach called somatic experiencing, I was able to feel again. A dramatic statement I know, but there's no other way to say it. I was extremely sceptical about this theory at first being a very logical and analytical person, however, after a number of sessions with a counsellor, I reconnected with my capacity to feel, name and express the sensations of my body, which was a game changer.

I cried for the first time in many years and felt the numbness I had always assumed was my identity begin to lift to allow me to engage with life in a new way. In one unforgettable session, I reenacted a particularly traumatic moment of abuse from my teens, replaying and revisiting the scene in minute detail until I felt a rush of adrenaline and was encouraged to push out at a cushion my therapist was holding. I will never forget the lightness and relief I felt, the shock at feeling something that had been stuck deep in my subconscious and in my body, release. I had shown my body that I now had the safety to say no.

I later had some sessions with an internal family systems therapist, who guided me towards a greater understanding of all of the protective parts of me that had developed in response to life’s traumas. There was too much of value to mention here but I communicated with one part of myself from childhood that I had long forgotten. I was reunited with some deeply vulnerable memories about wishing illness on myself so that I could be cared for.

By reconnecting and transforming my relationship with this part of myself that lived in my mind and body I was amazed that I was able to preempt a Crohn's flare before any physical symptoms. I could slow down to ensure I became the carer for this young and powerless part of me when it became triggered, before my illness took over. This part became my little self-care assistant, a messenger that I was reaching an internal boundary and needed to say no or slow down.

A different approach

If you’ve gotten this far, then thank you for taking the time to step into my world a little and consider these ideas. It's difficult to condense a whole new paradigm of thinking about illness into an article, and I have shared only the tip of the iceberg.

I encourage you if you're interested, to do some reading on the subject of the mind-body connection. Especially if you suffer from chronic ill health or disease. I'm particularly inspired by Dr Gabor Maté's book, When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress, which is a beautiful collection of case studies and medical evidence.

If you decide that therapy may have a role in your healing please be mindful to find a qualified and proficient counsellor and know that every therapist is different. Many counsellors do not work with the body and it’s important to understand a little about their approach upfront. Finding the right therapist for you may be a process in itself. 

I am not advocating for mental health support as a replacement for medical diagnostics and medication, however, I do urge you to consider widening the scope to include your whole self. Becoming an active agent of autonomy based on self-awareness can change your life as it did mine and many others. When illness becomes a messenger, vulnerability can be an agent for change and, in my case, even empowerment.