In group therapy, the assumption is that everything has meaning, including physical symptoms. If a medical doctor has  determined that there is no organic basis for  a group member’s physical symptoms, I believe that the member is ‘saying it’ through their body, hence the term body poet. The bodily symptom is a metaphor for an emotional conflict. The belief is that emotions are like energy; they can neither be created nor destroyed. They only change form.  If the emotions are not put into words, they are often discharged through action or through a bodily symptom. This is not to say, the group member’s complaint is:” all in their head”, meaning that the member is just making it up.  They are not just making it up, the symptom is quite real; but it’s etiology is different from an organically based symptom and therefore requires different treatment.                                                                                                                                                                  For example,  Margaret consulted me for group therapy.  Her individual therapist recommended group because of Margaret’s difficulties with her relationships with men.  (all identifying information has been changed to protect confidentiality). At the screening interview, she presented a host of physical ailments.  For example, she had been to a proctologist, complaining of severe rectal pain. When all tests came back negative, the doctor told her that her sphincter  muscle was so tight it may be causing pain.  He prescribed an anti-anxiety medication. I took a chance, not knowing her at all,  and asked :” Who in your life is a pain in the ass?” “My husband” was her immediate  reply.                                                                                                                                                                      Soon after beginning group, she began to experience headaches during the sessions. When I asked her:” who in this group is a headache?”. She didn’t hesitate:” Andrew”, she said.  ‘Why is Andrew a headache?” I asked. “Because he reminds me of my husband. He’s a dick”. Andrew, a controlling and dictatorial man in his ‘real life’, behaved similarly in group.  He was quite critical of the others, finding fault and telling them how to run their lives. He avoided the contract which is to:” say how you feel to the others and why you feel that way”.  In her ‘real life”, Margaret was intimidated by her husband’s bullying ways but she was emotionally dependent on him, and based on her own family history, she stifled her own feelings and kept quiet. It was my impression the dynamic between Andrew and her resembled the dynamic with her husband. Margaret lives the life of a child. She is an intelligent middle-aged woman who doesn’t work. She needs men but doesn’t particularly like them. In fact, she holds men in contempt.  Her father left her, her mother and  her five younger siblings, when Margaret was a small child. The mother had to go back to work, leaving them to fend for themselves.  Even as a small child, she had adult responsibility. She made oatmeal for the kids’ breakfast before she was even tall enough to reach the stove.  She stood on a chair. Growing up Margaret felt cheated out of childhood and vowed to marry a man who would take care of her.  She met such a man but paid a high price for her childhood wish. He held her in contempt as much as she did him. She mistook his sadism toward her as strength.  As she grew  in treatment, she wanted out of that toxic marriage but felt helpless to make a life for herself. The development of physical symptoms was her unconscious compromise solution. She could remain a child at the cost of her loss of autonomy and self-respect. Not a very good deal at all. If she were healthier, she would leave him.