Talk to ze Hand

Talk to ze Hand

Dear Hand,

I just broke up with my boyfriend of four years, and it hurts like hell. Any way I can help feeling this way?

In Extreme Pain

Dear Pain,

Pain is the brain’s way of telling you something is wrong. Physically, it can be that you’re experiencing nociceptive, inflammatory or neuropathic pain. But pain also goes way deeper, into the socioemotional realm, and it is here that even if you’re perfectly fit and healthy you still feel stressed out and hurt. Breaking up with someone you love is just one the reasons why people go into emotional pain overdrive, but it remains the most popular one. Thankfully Psychology has answers to your question, and we’ll apply what we know about the perception of physical pain to your emotional one.

Don’t expect. High expectations can kill, especially if you get disappointed. Instead, be realistic about the prospect of you and him back together, and think again why you dumped the guy. Being rational is the best way to go in this kind of situation.

Shift your attention. Be with a new hobby, or a new hubby, a habit or a hobbit, shifting your focus from your ex to your next is a good idea. Hoffman and his co-researchers (2000) suggest video games, while Robertson and colleagues (2009) advice people in pain to pray and be faithful. Hand Sam (2010a) suggests finding a new man. Take your pick.

Make sure your distraction is fun, though. The content of emotional distraction plays a huge role in alleviating or adding to one’s distress and pain. deWied and Verbaten (2001) experimented on the effect of positive versus negative distractions on pain perception by having people look at either positive, negative or neutral pictures while experiencing pain (really cold water). Their results concluded that it took more time for people in the positive pictures group to feel the pain threshold than people in both the neutral and negative pictures conditions. To apply this to your situation, what they’re saying is that you should hang out with fun people and do exciting activities more instead of lounging around and crying yourself to sleep every night watching romantic dramas.

Lastly, everything still depends on you. Individual differences account for a huge part in pain perception, and a person with a positive outlook in life experiences pain less frequently and with a significantly lesser intensity than someone who’s gloomy and all emo. So, what do you say? Chin up. There’s a ton of fishes in the ocean; if you can find one, you can find someone better.

Hope You’re Not in Pain Anymore,

Hand Sam

p. s. Opium works really well, too. :)

References:

deWeid, M. & Verbaten, M. N. (2001). Affective pictures processing, attention and pain tolerance. Pain, 90, 163-172.

Goldstein, E. B. (2007). Sensation and Perception (7^th Eds.). Wadsworth: Belmont, CA

Hoffman, H. G., Doctor, J. N., Patterson, D. R., Carrougher, G. J., & Furness, T. A. III (2000). Virtual reality as an adjunctive pain control during burn wound care in adolescent patients. Pain, 85, 305-309

Robertson, Linda A.; Smith, Heather L.; Ray, Shannon L.; Jones, K. Dayle. Journal of Counseling & Development, Summer2009, Vol. 87 Issue 3, p373-379, 7p