"When Your Doctor Says It's Psychosomatic"

Author: Bianca Moeschinger

December 2024

Hearing the words "your symptoms are psychosomatic" can feel like a slap in the face. For many, it stirs feelings of dismissal, frustration, or even shame. We want—sometimes desperately—for a doctor or specialist to label what is happening to us. We crave an explanation, a diagnosis, or a narrative that will make sense of our suffering. To hear that the mind and body are working together can feel like someone is saying "this is all in your head." And let’s be honest, no one wants to hear that.

But why? Why do we react so strongly to this idea?

Our Addiction to Labels and Fixes

We have been taught to look outside ourselves for answers. We’ve learned to trust someone who has focused and studied a subject for years—a doctor, a specialist, an expert—to provide the answer for our symptoms. When they can’t, we get upset, as if the map we were following suddenly ends.

The danger in fully relying on those experts is that we give them all the power. We can dismiss our own gut feelings, our intuition, and the deeper understanding we have of ourselves. Healing then becomes one-sided, as though we are passive passengers on a journey only they can navigate.

But life, and healing, is about balance. It’s about finding the space between the doctor’s advice and our own inner wisdom—offering equal trust to their expertise and to the insights that rise from within us. Our bodies are always communicating with us. Little signs appear through our emotional anatomy—a tightness in the chest, a clenching in the stomach—but too often we push through, ignoring the whispers until they become screams.

What if we learned to listen before something irreversible happened? What if we tuned into those quiet cues, those soft messengers, and acted with care before the body had to stop us in our tracks? Perhaps the key to a healthy, balanced life is this: learning to hear ourselves alongside the wisdom of others, so that healing becomes a collaboration, not a surrender.

Reclaiming Responsibility: The Truth About Psychosomatics

Here’s the truth: everything we experience has a psychosomatic element. This doesn’t mean your pain or illness isn’t real. It doesn’t mean you caused it. What it means is that your body and your mind are constantly communicating, weaving a dialogue beneath your awareness.

Psychosomatics is not a dismissal—it’s an invitation. An invitation to listen. Your emotions are the alchemy between mind and body, the bridge made of breath and blood. They can be the wind that fans the flame of healing, or they can be the pressure that deepens the fracture. The choice isn’t in the experience itself—it lies in how you respond.

For example:

• Do you meet pain like a warrior, fighting against it? Or do you lean into it like water, allowing it to flow through you with curiosity and trust?

• When you hear a diagnosis, do you spiral into fear, or do you pause and ask, What is this telling me? What story is unfolding within me?

• Have you taken the time to hear the whispers of your body—the tension held in your shoulders, the heaviness in your chest, the aching of old stories waiting to be released?

• Have you considered that your body is a living library, holding your subconscious, your history, and your truths in its tissues?

• Are you open to seeing healing as a reunion—a coming home to yourself—instead of just fixing what’s broken?

Your body is listening. It holds your unspoken stories like seeds buried beneath the soil, waiting for light. It reflects back to you what you’ve carried—your joys, your grief, your resistance—and it asks you to meet yourself with the kind of compassion that softens the hardest places.

The Wisdom of Your Body

When we strip away the fear attached to the word psychosomatic, we can see its beauty. Your body is not betraying you. It’s speaking to you in the only language it knows. It holds the map to your subconscious, drawn in breath, tension, and sensation. When pain or illness arises, it is not a punishment—it is an invitation:

• What is my body asking me to feel?

• What truths have I been burying that need to come to light?

• How can I meet this experience with the tenderness of a gardener tending the most fragile bloom?

Healing doesn’t always mean fixing. Sometimes it means remembering. It means remembering that your body is wise, that it is sacred, and that it is a vessel for your entire life’s experience. Healing is not a war to win—it is a dance to be felt, a journey back to balance.

A New Way Forward

Every illness, every symptom, every ache and pain carries a story. This isn’t about blame. It’s about listening. It’s about awakening to the delicate dance between your body, your mind, and your emotions. It’s about stepping out of fear and meeting yourself with curiosity and wonder.

So, when you hear the word psychosomatic, let it be a doorway—a threshold inviting you inward. Instead of reacting with anger or shame, ask yourself:

What is my body trying to tell me?
What part of me is asking to be seen, heard, and held?

Your body isn’t separate from you—it is you. It is the storyteller, the canvas, and the mirror. When you begin to listen, you don’t just heal—you come home to yourself.

If your doctor or specialist tells you it’s psychosomatic, seek out a psychosomatic therapist or sign up for one of our programs—and thank them. Thank them for handing the power back to you.