How do we deal with what happens?
How do we deal with experience? The quick answer is: we process it in association with previous experiences or thoughts and store it in our database of memories, where it … Continue reading
Migraine: does it also affect the bowels?
A Constellation of Symptoms It occasions unseemly and dreadful symptoms: nausea, bilious vomiting, collapse, gas in the stomach, eructations, vomiting, palpitations of the heart, vertigo, depression, despair. Sick headache is … Continue reading
Grief and IBS: some thoughts on how to survive it and recover.
‘Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. …… I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her. Love … Continue reading
All in the mind/all in the gut: it’s a false dichotomy.
Many of the posts in this blog tend to focus on trauma, stress and how what happens to us affects how the gut feels and misbehaves, but please don’t conclude … Continue reading
Love-sick
Sigmund Freud has been criticised for implying that most mental illness and much physical illness is due to sex. He might have said love or attachment, but nevertheless, he was … Continue reading
Escaping from the tyranny of what happened: a message of hope.
Over a hundred years ago, Joseph Breuer and Sigmund Freud wrote that ‘hysterics suffer mainly from reminiscences’. Hysteria, as a medical diagnosis, has gone out of fashion, outlawed by the … Continue reading
Diarrhoea; the stress and meaning of it.
We have all experienced it; an important interview, the fear of being out of control, an unfair accusation, shocking news; they can all trigger an urge to evacuate our bowels. … Continue reading
When fat intolerance becomes Sphincter of Oddi Dysfunction.
Mary has had constipation-predominant IBS for most of her adult life. She also has severe intolerance to fats and more recently a lot of other foods, which give her … Continue reading
Nothing in, nothing out: but is there more to constipation?
Doctors tend not to consider IBS a serious condition; that would be a mistake. Although most people seem to cope with the occasional inconvenience of it and live a normal … Continue reading
No, it’s not all in your head, but at least you can do something about that.
If IBS is all is your head, can somebody tell me how dietary fibre cures depression? … Continue reading
The Sensitive Gut 