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A broken heart (also known as heartbreak or heartache) is a metaphor for the intense emotional stress or pain one feels at experiencing great loss or deep Desire. The concept is cross-cultural, often cited with reference to unreciprocated or lost love.
Failed romantic love or unrequited love can be extremely painful; people suffering from a broken heart may succumb to depression, grief, anxiety and, in more extreme cases, post-traumatic stress disorder.
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. 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. The same researchers mention effect of social stressors on the heart, and personality on perception of pain.
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. 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". The research implicates the secondary somatosensory cortex and the dorsal posterior insular cortex.
Ruminating, or having intrusive thoughts that are continuous, uncontrollable, and distressing, 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:
Although there are overlapping symptoms, uncomplicated grief can be distinguished from a full depressive episode. 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. 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. 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.
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; 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, 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
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.
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. Some 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 and longer Q-T intervals that are associated with stress. 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.
Biblical references to the pain of a broken heart date back to 1015 BC. "Why is Bible engagement down in the digital age? Bible Gateway's Rachel Barach shares some insight". Biblegateway. Retrieved 5 August 2015.
Rudaki, regarded as the first great genius of Persian poetry, used broken heart imagery in his writing.
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. "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 Diego Rivera and Cristina Kahlo.
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