Manifestation / Can a Negative Mental State Add to Our Issues?

Bad JuJu

“We’re doing this exercise to limit your risk of injury.”

I’ve caught myself saying this before, but I try to avoid it like the plague.

Why would we even put this negative thought remotely close to a patient’s attention while we’re working on getting them away from it?!

Providers of any discipline commonly think people get structurally or mechanically injured but forget that there’s a human attached to the bag of meat we’re working with.

This human has a deepened relationship with this injury. Maybe they’ve missed time on the field. Maybe they’ve been lacking their usual social connections with teammates because they’re stuck in rehab. They could be mentally or socially struggling with this injury above and beyond the physical component.

This is called the BioPsychoSocial Approach to Pain.

Let’s set up an example:

I walk out of the office and slip on the curb while getting to my car. I twist my ankle and am diagnosed with a Grade II sprain/strain. So what? I can still work. I can still drive. Heck, I might even be able to limp around the golf course and enjoy some free time with this injury.

Now let’s take a High School Senior Soccer player who is Division 1 bound with a scholarship opportunity who gets side-tackled and suffers the same Grade II sprain/strain. This exact same injury is going to affect them differently than me. Dare we say MUCH worse. Why?

Because now they might lose their scholarship - mentally tasking and potentially debilitating. They’re not spending time with their teammates on the pitch or in the locker room - socially tasking.

The EXACT SAME injury can have a completely different toll on two different people.

So why feed into that vicious cycle? They know why they’re doing the darn exercise! To get stronger, more resilient, more endured - to get back to doing the things they love doing and feeling the way they deserve!