Migraine Headaches and their Relationship to Grief

As the session began, she explained that she had to go to hospital and have an operation on the back of her scull to remove a part of her brain. She explained that the operation would stop her horrendous migraine headaches from occurring, but that she could not bring herself to go to the hospital for the operation as she was too frightened. The operation was scheduled to occur in three days time.

As she was talking, I noticed her breathing was very erratic and her thoughts were racing. She was in a state of panic. I immediately commenced work with her by using some systematic desensitization exercises and deep relaxation techniques. She responded well to these and calmness began to return.

We then began to explore the issue of migraine head aches and, as we talked, a pattern began to emerge.

We noticed that the headaches were worse when she was cleaning the house, using window cleaners and spray & wipe type cleaners. Also the headaches were worse when she was exposed to some perfumes, and especially when her husband came home from the pub!

It was then I noticed the common denominator among all these triggers and asked her what her issue with alcohol was. She turned very quiet for a while and I allowed the silence to draw out. Then slowly she began sharing that, when she was sixteen, she had to make a choice about an unexpected pregnancy. She had chosen to have the child aborted, and the clinic that she went to had been cleaned out and disinfected with alcohol prior to her arrival.

We then explored the process of the unconscious trigger, alcohol, activating unconscious thoughts about the death of her child and the huge trauma leading up to that event with the continual deliberation around having to make the choice to abort. This unconscious process was too much for her conscious mind to bear, so it had been blocking it out with a migraine headache.

This discovery left the way open for her to explore grief counselling rather than working with panic attacks, options for a ceremonial service for release and acknowledgment of the child she lost, and a space for great healing to occur. This was a far more acceptable option than to have surgery on her brain! It was then that another trigger became apparent. Her daughter was just now turning sixteen too! This explained why the headaches had become more intense and more frequent lately, and offered an alternative avenue to explore, rather than fear of hospital and surgery.

This session was the greatest gift to me in that I was now aware of the process of grief that may occur behind migraine headaches. I have worked with many people since then who were struggling with migraine headaches, and in every situation so far, grief has been hiding behind the debilitating pain. 

It is such a privilege and an honour to be in the humbling place of helping these people to find relief through the correction of emotional expression.