Chronic muscular pain
Thursday September 07, 2006
Dear Alice Miller,
I am 58,a psychotherapist and writer.
I have written to you before without a reply. My present mail has to do with finding help for my daughter. She is 27.
Some years ago she suffered a traumatic sexual experience at the hands of her then boyfriend. But she only told us, her parents, a year or two later, because she suffered from amnesia of the event and went on dating him. It was only when they split, after she remembered it, that she told us. At first she showed a tendency to get depressed, but later she has developed chronic muscular pain or fibromyalgia. She has tried a couple of psychologists and every form of orthodox or unorthodox physical treatment: osteopathy, massage, spas, reiki, acupuncture, taichi…. that alleviate but don’t cure her.
I wonder if you know of any physical or psychological therapist who might help her.
Yours sincerely.
J. C.
AM: I am sorry that I can’t help you. It is a very painful illness and I don’t doubt that it is connected to traumatic experiences in childhood. But patients with these symptoms usually don’t want to discover what happened to them in their childhood and to feel their helplessness, which they then endured.