broken heart

The intense pain of a broken heart is believed to be part of the survival instinct. The "social-attachment system" uses the "pain system" to encourage humans to maintain their close social relationships by causing pain when those relationships are lost. Psychologists Geoff MacDonald of the University of Queensland and Mark Leary of Wake Forest University proposed in 2005 the evolution of common mechanisms for both physical and emotional pain responses and argue that such expressions are "more than just a metaphor".{{cite web|last1=MacDonald|first1=Geoff|last2=Leary|first2=Mark R.|title=Why Does Social Exclusion Hurt? The Relationship Between Social and Physical Pain|publisher=Psychological Bulletin|url=http://web.psych.utoronto.ca/gmacdonald/macdonald%20&%20leary,%202005a.pdf|access-date=7 May 2012|archive-date=8 April 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200408190528/http://web.psych.utoronto.ca/gmacdonald/macdonald%20%26%20leary%2C%202005a.pdf|url-status=dead}}{{sfn|University of Michigan News Service 2011}} The concept is believed to be universal, with many cultures using the same words to describe both physical pain and the feelings associated with relationship loss.{{sfn|University of Michigan News Service 2011}}

The neurological process involved in the perception of heartache is not known, but is thought to involve the anterior cingulate cortex of the brain, which during stress may overstimulate the vagus nerve causing pain, nausea or muscle tightness in the chest.{{sfn|Scientific American Mind 2015}} Research by Naomi Eisenberger and Matthew Lieberman of the University of California from 2008 showed that rejection is associated with activation of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and right-ventral pre-frontal cortex, areas established as being involved in processing of pain, including empathizing with pain experienced by others.{{sfn|Scientific American Mind 2015}} The same researchers mention effect of social stressors on the heart, and personality on perception of pain.{{sfn|Eisenberger|Lieberman|2004|pp=294-300}}

A 2011 study showed that the same regions of the brain that become active in response to painful sensory experiences are activated during intense social rejection or social loss in general.{{sfn|University of Michigan News Service 2011}}{{sfn|National Academy of Sciences 2011}} Social psychologist Ethan Kross from University of Michigan, who was heavily involved in the study, said, "These results give new meaning to the idea that social rejection hurts".{{sfn|University of Michigan News Service 2011}} The research implicates the secondary somatosensory cortex and the dorsal posterior insula.{{sfn|University of Michigan News Service 2011}}

For most bereaved individuals, the journey through grief will ultimately culminate in an acceptable level of adjustment to a life without their loved one.{{cite journal|last1=Zisook|first1=Sidney|last2=Shear|first2=Katherine|title=Grief and bereavement: what psychiatrists need to know|journal=World Psychiatry|date=1 June 2009|volume=8|issue=2|pages=67–74|pmc=2691160|doi=10.1002/j.2051-5545.2009.tb00217.x|pmid=19516922}} The Kübler-Ross model postulates that there are five stages of grief after the loss of a loved-one: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,689491,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090224074917/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,689491,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=24 February 2009|title= Milestones |date=30 August 2004 |magazine=Time| first=Sarah M. | last=Broom}} And while it is recognized that mourners go through initial period of numbness leading to depression and finally to reorganization and recovery, most modern grief specialists recognize the variations and fluidity of grief experiences differ considerably in intensity and length among cultural groups, individually from person to person as well as depending on the amount of investment put into the relationship.

Ruminating, or having intrusive thoughts that are continuous, uncontrollable, and distressing,{{sfn|Carll|2007|p=111}} is often a component of grieving. John Bowlby's concept of "searching for the lost object" is about the anxiety and mounting frustration as the mourner remains lost, frequently sifting through memories of the departed, and perhaps fleeting perceptions of spectral visitations by the lost individual. When the loss involves "being left" or "unrequited love",Tennov, Dorothy. Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love, Scarborugh House (1998). in addition to the above, this mental searching is accompanied by obsessive thoughts about factors leading to the breakup, and possibilities for reuniting with the lost individual.Bowlby, John, Loss: Sadness and Depression; Attachment and Loss, III, Basic Books, 1982. When rejection is involved, shame may also be involved – the painful feeling of being inherently unacceptable, disposable, unworthy.Lewis, Helen Block. Shame and Guilt in Neurosis. Madison: International Universities Press, 1971.

The physical signs of grieving include:{{cite web|author=Staff Writer|title=Bereavement And Grief|url=http://www.homelifecountry.com/bereavement-and-grief/|publisher=HomeLifeCountry|access-date=15 November 2012|archive-date=9 June 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190609203636/http://www.homelifecountry.com/bereavement-and-grief/|url-status=dead}}

• Exhaustion, muscle tightness or weakness, body pains, fidgety restlessness, lack of energy
• Insomnia, sleeping too much, disturbing dreams
• Loss of appetite, overeating, nausea, "hollow stomach", indigestion, intestinal disorders like diarrhea, excessive weight gain or loss
• Headaches, shortness of breath, chest pressure, tightness or heaviness in the throat

A broken heart is a major stressor and has been found to precipitate episodes of major depression. In one study (death of a spouse), 24% of mourners were depressed at two months, 23% at seven months, 16% at 13 months and 14% at 25 months.

Although there are overlapping symptoms, uncomplicated grief can be distinguished from a full depressive episode.{{cite journal|last1=Auster|first1=T|last2=Moutier|first2=C|last3=Lanouette|first3=N|title=Bereavement and depression: implications for diagnosis and treatment|journal=Psychiatric Annals|date=1 October 2008|volume=38|issue=10|pages=655–661|doi=10.3928/00485713-20081001-01}} Major depression tends to be more pervasive and is characterized by significant difficulty in experiencing self-validating and positive feelings. Major depression is composed of a recognizable and stable cluster of debilitating symptoms, accompanied by a protracted, enduring low mood. It tends to be persistent and associated with poor work and social functioning, pathological immunological function, and other neurobiological changes unless treated.

In relationship breakups, mourners may turn their anger over the rejection toward themselves.{{cite book|last1=Colin|first1=Virginia A.|title=Human Attachment|date=1996|publisher=Temple University Press|location=Philadelphia|page=340}} This can deepen their depressionSchore, Allan. Affect Regulation and Origin of Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1994, pp. 416-422 and cause narcissistic wounding.{{cite book|last1=Kohut|first1=Heinz|title=The Restoration of the Self|date=1977|publisher=International Universities Press|location=New York}} The process of self-attack can range from mild self-doubt to scathing self-recrimination which leaves a lasting imprint on an individual's self-worth and causes them to doubt their lovability, personality-efficacy, and attachment worthiness going forward.Robertiello, Richard. Hold Them Very Close, Then Let Them Go. New York: Dial, 1975.

In severe cases, the depression of a broken heart can create a sustained type of stress that constitutes an emotional trauma which can be severe enough to leave an emotional imprint on individuals' psychobiological functioning, affecting future choices and responses to rejection, loss, or disconnection.{{cite book |last1= van der Kolk |first1= Bessel A |author-link= Bessel van der Kolk |last2= McFarlane |first2= Alexander C |last3= Weisæth |first3= Lars |author-link3= Lars Weisæth |date= 1996 |title= Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society |location= New York |publisher= Guilford Press |isbn= 978-1-5723-0088-0}} A contributing factor to the trauma-producing event is that 'being left' can trigger primal separation fear – the fear of being left with no one to take care of one's vital needs.

Mourners may also experience the intense stress of helplessness.Seligman, Martin. Helplessness: On Depression, Development and Death. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1975. If they make repeated attempts to compel their loved one to return and are unsuccessful, they will feel helpless and inadequate to the task. Feeling one's "limited capacity" can produce a fault line in the psyche which renders the person prone to heightened emotional responses within primary relationships.Balint, Michael. The Basic Fault: Therapeutic Aspects of Regression. Evanston: North Western University Press, 1992.

Another factor contributing to the traumatic conditions is the stress of losing someone with whom the mourner has come to rely in ways they did not realize.Winnecott, Donald W. "The Capacity to be Alone". In The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development. Madison: International Universities Press, 1965; {{cite journal | author = Robertiello Richard, Gagnier Terril T | year = 1993 | title = Sado-masochism as a Defense Against Merging: Six Case Studies | journal = Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy | volume = 23 | issue = 3| pages = 183–192 | doi = 10.1007/BF00945978 | s2cid = 37471839 }} For instance, in time, couples can become external regulators for one another, attuned on many levels: pupils dilated in synchrony, echoing one another's speech patterns, movements, and even cardiac and EEG rhythms.Tiffany Field, "Attachment as Psychobiological Attunement: Being on the Same Wavelength", in The Psychobiology of Attachment and Separation, pp. 445-448. Couples can function like a mutual bio-feedback system, stimulating and modulating each other's biorhythms, responding to one another's pheromones,{{cite journal | vauthors = Monti-Bloch L, Grosser BI | title = Effect of putative pheromones on the electrical activity of the human vomeronasal organ and olfactory epithelium | journal = J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol | volume = 39 | issue = 4B | pages = 573–82 | date = October 1991 | pmid = 1892788 | doi = 10.1016/0960-0760(91)90255-4 | s2cid = 46330425 }} and be addicted due to the steady trickle of endogenous opiates induced by the relationship.Pert, Candace B. Molecules of Emotion. New York: Scribner, 1997' and {{cite journal | vauthors = Panksepp J, Nelson E, Bekkedal M | title = Brain systems for the mediation of social separation-distress and social-reward. Evolutionary antecedents and neuropeptide intermediaries | journal = Ann N Y Acad Sci | volume = 807 | issue = 1| pages = 78–100 | date = January 1997 | pmid = 9071345 | doi = 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1997.tb51914.x | bibcode = 1997NYASA.807...78P | s2cid = 23809381 }}

Research has shown that in extreme cases, some who experience a broken heart go on to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).Goleman, Daniel. The Emotional Brain and Emotional Intelligence: New Insights. North Hampton, Mass, 2011.

There are various predisposing psycho-biological and environmental factors that determine whether one's earlier emotional trauma might lead to the development of a true clinical picture of posttraumatic stress disorder. This would lower their threshold for becoming aroused and make them more likely to become anxious when they encounter stresses in life that are reminiscent of childhood separations and fears, hence more prone to becoming post-traumatic.

Another factor is that insecure attachments in childhood have shown to predispose the individuals to difficulties in forming secure attachments in adulthood and to having heightened responses to rejection and loss.Ainsworth, Mary D. S. "Attachments and Other Affectional Bonds Across the Life Cycle". In Attachments Across the Life Cycle. New York: Routledge, 1991; Horney, Karen Horney, K. The neurotic personality of our time. New York: W. W. Norton and Company (1937).

There is also variation in individuals' neurochemical systems that govern the stress regulation. Depending on the severity of the stress response induced in an individual by an event (i.e. a romantic breakup), certain concentrations of stress hormones including CRF, ACTH, and cortisol work to intensify the imprinting of an emotional memory of the event, indelibly inscribing its fears and other sensations in the amygdala (to serve as a warning for future events),LeDoux, Joseph. "Emotion, Memory and the Brain". Scientific American (June 1994). while the same stress hormones can act to impede.

{{main|Takotsubo cardiomyopathy}}

In many legends and fictional tales, characters die after suffering a devastating loss; however, even in reality people die from what appears to be a broken heart. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or broken heart syndrome, is commonly described as a physical pain in the chest or heart or stomach area, which is due to the emotional stress caused by a traumatic breakup or the death of a loved one.

Broken heart syndrome mimics symptoms of a heart attack, but it is clinically different from a heart attack because the patients have few risk factors for heart disease and were previously healthy prior to the heart muscles weakening.{{sfn|Mayo Clinic 2015}} Some echocardiograms expressed how the left ventricle, of people with the broken heart syndrome, was contracting normally but the middle and upper sides of the heart muscle had weaker contractions due to inverted T waves and longer Q-T intervals that are associated with stress.{{sfn|Lumb|2014|p=51}} Magnetic resonance images suggested that the recovery rates for those with broken heart syndrome are faster than those who had heart attacks and complete recovery to the heart is achieved within two months.{{sfn|Mayo Clinic 2015}}

Physiological and biochemical changes that contribute to higher physical illnesses and heart disease have been found in individuals that have high levels of anxiety and depression. Some individuals who have divorced have compromised immune systems because of inflammatory cytokines followed by a state of depression.{{sfn|Field|2012|pp=382-387}}

The sentiment is expressed in a collection of Sumerian proverbs:[http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/proverbs/t.6.1.03.html Collection III] at The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature {{blockquote|May Inana pour oil on my heart that aches.}}

Biblical references to the pain of a broken heart date back to 1015 BC.[https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Psalm%2069%3A20 "Why is Bible engagement down in the digital age? Bible Gateway's Rachel Barach shares some insight"]. Biblegateway. Retrieved 5 August 2015.

{{blockquote|Insults have broken my heart and left me weak, I looked for sympathy but there was none; I found no one to comfort me|Psalm 69:20}}

Rudaki, regarded as the first great genius of Persian poetry, used broken heart imagery in his writing.

{{poemquote|

Look at the cloud, how it cries like a grieving man

Thunder moans like a lover with a broken heart.

}}

Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra features a character, Enobarbus, who dies of a broken heart after betraying a friend. Lady Montague dies of a broken heart after the banishment of her son in Romeo and Juliet.[http://www.shakespeare-literature.com/Romeo_and_Juliet/26.html "Romeo and Juliet, Act V Scene III"]. Shakespeare Literature. Retrieved 5 August 2015.

Frida Kahlo's 1937 painting Memory, the Heart portrays the artist's heartbreak during and after an affair between her husband and her sister.

• Emptiness
• Interpersonal relationship
• Intimate relationship
• Limerence
• Loneliness
• Widowhood effect

{{reflist|30em}}

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| date = 25 March 2011

| publisher = University of Michigan News Service

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| access-date = 3 November 2011

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}}

• {{cite journal

| title = Social Rejection Shares Somatosensory Representations With Physical Pain

| publisher = National Academy of Sciences

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| doi=10.1073/pnas.1102693108

| volume=108

| issue = 15

| journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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| date=April 2011

| vauthors=Kross E, Berman MG, Mischel W, Smith EE, Wager TD

| bibcode = 2011PNAS..108.6270K

| doi-access = free

}}

• {{Commons category-inline|Broken hearts}}
• {{Wikiquote-inline}}
• {{Wikiversity-inline|Motivation and emotion/Book/2018/Broken-heart syndrome}}
• {{Wiktionary-inline|broken heart}}

Category:Love

Category:Metaphors referring to body parts

Category:Emotions

Category:Suffering