Functional Somatic Symptoms in Children and Adolescents by Kasia Kozlowska & Stephen Scher & Helene Helgeland

Author:Kasia Kozlowska & Stephen Scher & Helene Helgeland
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030461843
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Shifting Gear to Systems Thinking: A Few Tips to the Reader

Like the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, the immune-inflammatory system is immensely complex, and clinicians from non-medical backgrounds may find this chapter challenging. The interconnections between the immune-inflammatory system and the HPA axis, autonomic nervous system, and brain stress systems are indirect and non-linear. It may be helpful for the reader to shift gear from linear to systems thinking, and to conceptualize these interconnections not as involving specific pathways but rather as involving patterns of change and shifts in patterns of communication.

An easy way to keep these interactions in mind is to visualize the overlap between circles in the stress-system model (see Fig. 4.​2) and to remember in a general way that, because of the cross-talk between the immune-inflammatory system and other components of the stress system, activation or dysregulation in one part of the system will have flow-on effects in other parts.

Alternatively, the reader can think of the immune-inflammatory system as a large fishing net. Just as a fish, caught in one part of a net, causes changes in tension in other parts of the net, so do changes in immune-inflammatory signalling lead to ripples of change across the broader immune-inflammatory system and also across the stress system as a whole. Likewise, changes in particular other components of the stress system will lead to ripples of changes throughout the rest of the stress system.

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