Ingela Thuné-Boyle, PhD
International Health Coach 
Online Practice

In this video, I explore why communication between patients and healthcare professionals can have such a profound impact on the experience of chronic illness and persistent symptoms. For many people, one of the most difficult aspects of living with a long-term condition is not only the symptoms themselves, but the challenge of trying to explain them, make sense of them, and feel heard within the healthcare system.

The way we describe illness is not neutral. It shapes how conditions are understood, how patients are treated, and how individuals make sense of their own symptoms. Few terms illustrate this more clearly than mind–body syndrome and psychosomatic illness. While they are sometimes used interchangeably, they reflect very different underlying assumptions about health, causation, and care. At first glance, both terms attempt to capture the relationship between psychological and ph

Historically, many poorly understood illnesses were attributed to psychological causes when medicine lacked adequate biological explanations. Patients with complex or under recognized conditions were often dismissed as anxious, hysterical, or overly focused on their symptoms. This legacy has contributed to ongoing mistrust and even trauma among some patients and is now often described as medical gaslighting.