Coping with Illness: Emotional Reactions and Mental Health

Emotional Reactions to Health Loss

Emotional reactions to the loss of health are frequent and varied. Common reactions include:

• Anxiety: Feelings of worry or fear.
• Aggressiveness: Displays of rage.

When faced with unpleasant emotions, people often employ psychological strategies known as defense mechanisms. These are automatic, unconscious reactions to emotionally challenging situations, designed to help individuals cope.

Common Defense Mechanisms

• Denial: Refusing to acknowledge the reality of the situation.
• Manic Defense: Reacting with excessive excitement or happiness to mask distress. These two mechanisms are common initially but tend to fade as the illness becomes more apparent.
• Repression: Suppressing awareness of the illness.
• Regression: Adopting behaviors from earlier stages of life.
• Rationalization: Attempting to justify the situation with logical reasons.

The Grieving Process (Duelo)

Experiencing significant loss triggers a range of emotions until acceptance is achieved. This process is called grief. If defense mechanisms fail, anxiety, depression, and aggression can arise, potentially leading to psychological distress.

Pathology Related to Health Loss and Healthcare

Key elements include:

• The subjective experience of the disease.
• Lack of information (desinformación).
• Past experiences with medical staff.
• The specific nature of the patient-caregiver relationship.

Depressive Disorders and Disease

Depression in adults is characterized by symptoms such as low mood, loss of appetite, and sleep disturbances. It's important to distinguish between normal depressive emotions and clinical depression. While grief can cause similar reactions to depression, the mood typically normalizes over time. In clinical depression, symptoms persist.

Suicidal thoughts (ideation) are common in depressed patients.

Mental Disorders Associated with Disease

Common reactions to illness include:

• Depressive disorders
• Anxiety disorders, which can manifest as:
  • Panic attacks or phobias
  • Obsessions
  • Generalized Anxiety Disorder
• Psychotic disorders: Severe emotional disturbances involving a loss of contact with reality.
• Somatoform disorders: The patient believes they have a physical illness.

Alterations in Health Consultations

These can also be indicative of underlying mental health issues.