When you get severe back pain and try to find treatment, you will inevitably be told, even by a licensed doctor, that they suspect your pain is all in your head. Expect this. These doctors have seen a lot of fraudsters (trying to get insurance money) and also have read about a theory very popular in the 1990’s. When this theory was promoted by national radio shock jock Howard Stern, even more medical people gave this theory credence. What is this theory? That your severe back pain is all in your head.

Who Says So?

Sigmund Freud, considered the father of modern psychiatry, often noted in his writings and lectures that mental problems could give a patient inexplicable pains, including severe back pain. He recommended that the only cure was a psychiatric one. This idea has fallen in and out of favor since the early 1900’s.

Many books dealing with chronic pain in the 1970’s and 1980’s also supported the idea that severe back pain was all in a person’s head. Two of these books included the popular Oh, My Aching Back by Leon Root, MD and Thomas Kiernan (1973), which claimed exercises, better posture and affirmations would be best for severe back pain. The Back Doctor by Hamilton Hall, MD (1980) claimed that most (but not all) severe back pain was due to emotional stress.

The Great Mystery

When you have severe back pain, you think that the mystery of intelligent life on other planets will be solved long before anyone can you an accurate diagnosis. Many people with severe back pain must go to many doctors and specialists before finding out why their back hurts. Many tests, medicines and therapies seem to be a hit or miss affair. This is normal. It seems severe back pain can become as individual as the people they cause to suffer.

But do not give up hope. If one doctor can’t help you, get another. It is in a doctor’s best interests to admit defeat and try to recommend someone with more knowledge of back pain. With the advancement in MRI scans, seeing minute problems in the back can speed up diagnosis. Surgery is always a last resort, but will be recommended by any doctor if you start loosing bowel and bladder control (which is partially controlled by the spine). Even a doctor who says the pain is all in your head won’t be able to argue with that.