PAIN AND GUILT: THE RATIONALIZATION OF GUILT FROM PAIN
We suffer pain. We have the feeling deep down that wrongdoing brings pain. In silence we ask ourselves, “What is it that I have done?” In the long hours of the night when pain keeps us awake, we search the past. We have all done wrong. Our mind catches on to these things, and we become preoccupied with them. They are often sexual incidents of long ago. When day comes, and we have moments of freedom from pain, we can see these things for what they
are—peccadilloes or incidents of life to which most of us are heir. But with persistent pain, the thought recurs. And sooner or later we become possessed of the vague feeling that the pain which we are suffering is somehow connected with our shortcomings of the past. It is seldom that these ideas are openly expressed. If we are questioned on the subject, we immediately think about it, and as we do so the idea no longer seems sensible, and we deny feeling that way. But all the same the idea keeps recurring, vaguely but persistently. The evidence that this type of thinking commonly occurs in those with chronic pain comes from psychotherapy with such patients. These vague feelings, which are denied in answer to a direct question, are nevertheless divulged to the oblique but more penetrating probing of psychiatric treatment.
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