Primary Headache from a Psychosocial Perspective

Abstract

Primary headache can be seen as a failure to adapt to environmental demands. From an interoception point of view, every change in sensation, which is not in line with predictions, can cause a surprise, produce feelings, emotions, a perception of distress, a headache and initiate pain behaviour. Social stress is a stress which arises from interactions with people, social situations, social roles and could be important part of an overall psycho-psychical burden. A common form of social stress is stress in the workplace. Our predictions originate from our beliefs, which in turn depend on the knowledge we obtain during our lives. Our personality, in combination with the social situation, is important in producing distress and related headaches. From a cognitive neuroscience perception, such headaches are produced in the process of inference and depend on both sensations and predictions through interoception. Thus, headaches from a biopsychosocial view can be considered as behaviour responses to stresses including social stress.