Psychiatrist Spars With Ministers on Illness in Marriage

              6-H Sunday, April 30, 1972 THE SHREVEPORT TIMES
Psychiatrist Spars
With Ministers on
Illness in Marriage
By Bill Lodge
Of The Times Staff
A l e c t u r e on psychophysiological
disorders triggered a spirited "discussion
on the role of the institution of marriage
in such cases during the final meeting of
the spring semester of the Clinical
Pastoral Training Program this week in
Shreveport.
Dr. Billy Floyd, a resident psychia-trist
at Confederate Memorial Medical
Center and an associate professor at
psychiatry at the Louisiana State Univer-sity
School of Medicine in Shreveport,
was asked if separation is every advised
for couples in which one or both partes
become extremely ill because of emo-tional
conflicts resulting from the mar-riage.
Floyd replied that in some cases
separation might possibly be the most
beneficial therapy available for both
members of the marriage.
"Here is where we as psychiatrists
often receive the most static from you as
ministers," he added.
Floyd, a graduate of the University of
Southwestern at L a f a y e t t e and the
Louisiana State University School of
Medicine at New Orleans, had previously
explained that emotional disorders often
result in very serious physical illness.
Some of the ministers present at the
meeting expressed severe criticism of
separation. Others were of the opinion
that, in some cases, divorce might be the
only answer.
There was also a considerable discus-sion
on the morality of men and women
who live together as partners but who
are not married.
"I know of none of these so called
'meaningful relationships' t h a t have
lasted," one minister remarked.
"Some of them have ties which are
just as binding as the marriage con-tract,"
said another.
Asked if the percentage of unmarried
couples who remain lifelong partners
was equal to the percentage of mar-riages
which last, Floyd replied that
several years of investigative study on
the contrasting life styles would be
needed before an accurate comparison
could be made.
In addition to his work at Confederate
M e m o r i a l and the LSU School of
Medicine, Floyd is active as a group
therapist with the Community Organiza-tion
for Drug Abuse Control (CODAC).
He also works with the Shreveport
Mental Health Center and at the Ruston
Mental Health Center each week.
In discussung psychophysiological dis-orders,
he said that the t'eVm psychoso-matic
is no longer applied to these
particular types of illness.
Can Be Serious Threat
According to him, this is because
many people associate the word psycho-somatic
with some form of sickness
which is totally imaginary and which
cannot be a serious threat to a persons
health.
He explained that the opposite was
true in spite of the fact that the origin of
the ailment lies in one or more emotional
disorders.
"Your emotions can make you ex-tremely
ill, and the pain is very real," he
said.
Floyd pointed to the current belief
that emotions can cause peptic ulcers,
set of asthma attacks, lead to rheuma-toid
arthritis, develop migraine head-aches
and even drive a person to
becoming obese.
He also said that skin disorders and
problems with the r e s p i r a t o r y and
cardiovascular systems can result from
emotional strain.