Headache

our patients have suffered from headaches since their youth. During the period of manifest disease this symptom is found in the greatest variety of forms: as pressure in the entire head, behind the forehead, and especially frequently in the occipital region

Bleuler catalogs headache as a constitutive, polymorphic somatic symptom of schizophrenia, noting its possible relation to sexuality in its occipital presentation and distinguishing it from mere organic complication.

Bleuler, Eugen, Dementia Praecox or the Group of Schizophrenias, 1911thesis

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She had a long history of migraine headaches and her health was otherwise excellent… Two weeks before admission, on a routine visit to her family doctor, she complained about her headaches and was referred to our headache clinic

Damasio presents a patient's chronic migraine history as the clinical backdrop for an episode of transient amnesia, using it to investigate the dissociation of extended consciousness from core self.

Damasio, Antonio R., The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness, 1999thesis

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Her view was that she needed to find out the root physical cause of her headache rather than trying to medicate every ache or pain. What she discovered is that her headaches were due to allowing herself to become too 'stressed out' at work

Shaw employs headache as a pastoral-psychological case study in which somatic symptoms are understood as disclosures of emotional dysregulation, prioritizing root-cause discernment over pharmacological management.

Shaw, Mark E., The Heart of Addiction: A Biblical Perspective, 2008thesis

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she pretends to have a headache and says, 'Let's stay at home. I have a headache.' But if he has a differentiated feeling function, he will sense that today this is a trick

Von Franz uses the feigned or ambiguous headache as an archetypal illustration of the power complex operating within the feminine, distinguishing manipulative somatic performance from genuine bodily suffering.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, 1970thesis

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she pretends to have a headache and says, 'Let's stay at home. I have a headache.' But if he has a differentiated feeling function, he will sense that today this is a trick

A parallel rendering of von Franz's argument that headache, when instrumentalized within an anima-inflected power dynamic, demands differentiated feeling discrimination from the conscious masculine ego.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Puer Aeternus: A Psychological Study of the Adult Struggle with the Paradise of Childhood, 1970supporting

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Before the onset of migraine headache a generalized accumulation of fluid may occur as part of a non-specific disturbance in fluid and electrolytes that is found in many persons with and without the migraine syndrome during periods of stress.

Woodman situates migraine within a psychosomatic framework linking stress-induced vascular disturbance to the broader constellation of the repressed feminine, drawing on medical literature to ground her analytical argument.

Woodman, Marion, The Owl Was a Baker's Daughter: Obesity, Anorexia Nervosa and the Repressed Feminine: a Psychological Study, 1980supporting

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childhood physical abuse, not childhood sexual abuse, predicted depression, anxiety, and somatization among women with CPP (n = 64), women with chronic headache (n = 42), and women without chronic pain complaints (n = 46)

Nijenhuis positions chronic headache alongside chronic pelvic pain as a somatoform outcome of physical abuse, situating it within the trauma-dissociation research framework as a measurable correlate of somatic dissociation.

Nijenhuis, Ellert, Somatoform Dissociation: Phenomena, Measurement, and Theoretical Issues, 2004supporting

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Head is slightly heavy all over.

Within a first-person phenomenological record of a transient amnesiac episode, Damasio documents a diffuse cephalic heaviness as part of the somatic signature of disrupted self-awareness.

Damasio, Antonio R., The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness, 1999supporting

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in the headache study, a difference of 2 or 3 scale units between the treatment and control groups might represent an effect as great as or greater than a difference of 100 cigarettes in the smoking study

James uses headache treatment measurement as a methodological exemplar for explaining effect size and variability in psychological research design, without psychological interpretation of the symptom itself.

James, William, The Principles of Psychology, 1890aside

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