Exploring the lived emotional experiences patients with migraine disorder

Migraine headache is a debilitating disease that has many complications and limitations for sufferers. Since this disease is considered one of the psychosomatic disorders, therefore, how the disease is experienced and perceived can affect the course of the disease.

The present study was conducted to explore the lived emotional experiences of patients with migraine disorder.

The approach of this research was qualitative and its phenomenological method was of a descriptive type, for this purpose, 20 people were selected from among the patients who were referred to the medical and psychiatric clinics of Isfahan city in 1400 after meeting the conditions of entering the research. and were subjected to in-depth interviews. The interviews continued until the saturation of information was recorded using a voice recorder and finally analyzed through the multi-phased procedure of Giorgi (2003).

The findings of the research indicate the achievement of 3 general themes (10 sub-themes) including; I don't know what I am facing and what to do with it. (Awareness, validation, and experience of emotions), What is going on inside me? (self-destructive, worrying, anticipatory, and restorative) and what guides the path of my being. (Cognitive, emotional, and physiological guides).

The research findings showed that people suffering from migraine headaches have problems in experiencing and processing their emotions and they suffer from worry and self-blame, which directs their behavior towards their illness, so it is possible to focus on the obstacles to their emotional experience. The behavioral cycle them changed their attribution to their illness and in this way reduced the recurrence of their headaches.