Number of Doctor Visits by Adults Abused or Neglected As Children Is Higher Than Others
By John A. Speyrer Webmaster of http://www.primal-page.com

From England comes a study which found that those adults who were neglected in their upbringing have a higher rate of doctor visits. The study quoted physician and researcher Francis Creed of the University of Manchester. "Many patients visit doctors with symptoms that cannot be explained by underlying physical disease." He goes on to write that, "(c)ommon examples are headache, abdominal and chest pains and constant tiredness." Dr. Creed touts anti-depressants and talk therapy (cognitive behavior therapy) as beneficial to those patients. He believes that their use would help in changing the person's attitude by enabling them to be able to recognize normal body sensations.
The study report appears in the journal, General Hospital Psychiatry, and comprised 129 adults treated at outpatient clinics at two teaching hospitals. 58 of the adults had symptoms which could not be medically explained.
Dr. Stanislav Grof writes In Beyond the Brain, (p. 282-283) that the symptoms of those patients which had no medical explanation are real even if their origin is not in a medical problem. He believes that "(t)heir symptoms are a surfacing organismic memory of serious physiological difficulties from the past, such as diseases, operations, or injuries -- and particularly the trauma of birth."

He continues:
"These involve pains, pressures and cramps in other forms of unusual phenomena. They can also show signs of dysfunction of various organs, such as breathing difficulties, dyspepsia, nausea and vomiting, constipation and diarrhea, muscular tremors, general malaise, weakness and fatigue. Repeated medical examinations fail to detect any objective indications of actual physical disease. . . . Patients with these sooner or later become a real menace in doctors' offices and treats them as somewhere on the continuum between malingerers and hysterics.
In many instances, they continue to be seen by internists, neurologists, and specialists from other disciplines. According to some statistics and estimates, patients of this sort could represent as many as 30 percent of the clientele treated by internists." (op. cit., p. 282)

The article in General Hospital Psychiatry reported that 41 percent of the 129 patients reported at least one childhood incident which was either physical, sexual or psychological. Also included was severe parental neglect or indifference. The ones who report one or more incidents of adversity in childhood as adults visited the doctor about 16 times; those who were free of adverse situations visited physicians an average of 10 times.
Those subjected to adverse situations "also had higher levels of depression and greater concerns about illness and reported more symptoms. . . . Childhood sexual abuse and parental neglect appeared to have the strongest effect on how often patients with unexplained symptoms visited doctors."

My Comments:
Unfortunately, the study had no way of knowing that some of those who reported a happy childhood, had repressed trauma and really did believe that their childhood experiences were pleasant. One can be almost certain that the group which reported a stress free childhood with loving parents and who also reported a large number of doctor visits probably also had severe birth trauma and less than loving optimal care in early years.