A Case of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) caused by Anxiety during Train Operation which was eased by Systematic Desenditization (SD)

Abstract

We reported a case of 35-year-old male motorman who was suffering from work-related IBS. His symptoms were eased by a psychosomatic approach we provided while he was away from work for a half-year. The specific therapies were as follows : 1. Antidepressant medication, anti-anxiety drugs, drugs for the bowel. 2. Counseling and autogenic training conducted not only fro self-evaluation and relaxation but also for understanding the correlation between body and mind. 3. SD in order to ease anxiety while operating a train. Regarding the process of SD, the patient told us about a fatal accident which he had witnessed previously. SD, intended to remove the anxiety caused by observing the fatal accident, rapidly eased the patient's physical symptoms, and he became able to return to his job.