Conversion Disorder & Abreaction Therapy
“Noor Hanif”, a 25 yr old girl came to Jaslok Hospital, Mumbai from her ravaged Arab nation who was confined in a wheelchair for past 4 years, which made her visit 8 hospitals across 4 countries and take consultation from 15 doctors in the middle-east since 2020 in the hope of getting back to her feet again. Previously, diagnoses were made such as congenital myopathy (genetic muscle disorder), thymoma (a tumor in the thymus gland located in the chest), myasthenia gravis (an auto-immune condition that attacks muscles).
Arrived in Mumbai, she underwent a comprehensive neurological assessment only to found nothing physically wrong with her as per the Psychiatrist Dr. Rajesh Parikh who later on tend to suspect “conversion disorder” in which a psychological conflict gets converted into a physical indisposition.
After 10 “Pentothal Abreaction session” of 45 minutes each where the patient was administered sodium thiopental, making her in a “suspended state” which is like staying in between “anesthetization” and “wakefulness”, during which the patient abreacts (emotional outbursts) and discusses deeply buried conflicts.
Domestic issues, the on-going war in her country and disruption of her dream of becoming a surgeon were the conflicts found to be those conflicts in Noor's case. After 4 sessions, she finally touched the ground and after 7 sessions she walked for 2km.
Although, psychotherapy could be helpful but, abreaction therapy shortened that process. There is also the possibility of relapse so Noor would have to be “cautiously optimistic” and not doing everything immediately in order to make up for the past few years and have follow-up sessions, the doctors said.
Noor was ready once again to rejoin her college and become a doctor along with participating in a marathon (after a few months).
This case reminded me of a book by Louise Hay titled as “You can heal your life” in which she elaboratively talked about “holistic healing” which includes body, mind and spirit. The body includes nutrition, physical exercise, alternative therapies like acupuncture and all, relaxation techniques. The mind includes psychological techniques, support groups, reading books, repeating positive affirmations, counseling, therapy and all. And the spirit includes spiritual healing. Louise herself cured her vaginal cancer with the help of holistic healing and worked on her psychological trauma which affected most of her lived years. She also mentioned affirmations for various concerns which includes as simple as swelling to as complicated as Alzheimer's disease.
What do you think of inter-connectedness of physical and mental health? and, what insight we can get from Noor's case to implement in our profession as a Psychologist?
