Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry. 2012 Dec;43(4):981-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jbtep.2012.03.005. Epub 2012 Apr 7.
Physical pain can reduce emotional distress, perhaps especially the psychic pain of guilt. This implies that people who continually experience guilt may exhibit greater tolerance for pain relative to people who do not.
To test this hypothesis, we administered a pressure algometer procedure to assess pain tolerance in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) plagued by moral obsessions (e.g., concerns about harming others, violating religious values), in patients with OCD with non-moral obsessions (e.g., regarding contamination and symmetry), and in healthy comparison subjects.
The results indicated that the OCD groups did not differ in levels of guilt, emotional distress tolerance, or in pain endurance. However, when we collapsed across subtypes, OCD subjects endured pain significantly longer than did healthy subjects.
Limitations included small sample size and use of a sample with complex OCD symptoms that were, in some instances, difficult to categorize.
The results suggest that individuals with severe OCD might be willing to endure physical pain as a distraction from emotional distress, an expression of negative self-worth, or as a means to gain control over some aspect of suffering.
身体疼痛可以减轻情绪困扰，尤其是罪恶感等心理痛苦。这意味着，持续感到内疚的人可能比不感到内疚的人对疼痛有更高的耐受性。
为了验证这一假设，我们对强迫症（OCD）患者进行了压力测痛仪测试，这些患者深受道德困扰（例如担心伤害他人、违反宗教价值观），同时对患有非道德困扰（例如，关于污染和对称）的 OCD 患者以及健康对照组进行了测试。
结果表明，OCD 组在内疚感、情绪困扰容忍度或疼痛耐受力方面没有差异。然而，当我们将亚型合并时，OCD 患者的疼痛耐受时间明显长于健康对照组。
局限性包括样本量小以及使用了复杂 OCD 症状的样本，在某些情况下难以分类。
结果表明，严重 OCD 患者可能愿意忍受身体疼痛，以分散情绪困扰，表达消极的自我价值感，或作为控制痛苦的某种手段。
