Colitis: A Self-Healing Perspective

Colitis

(Ulcerative Colitis)

In this article I want to look at colitis from several angles: what it is, how it is usually treated, and what inner conditions may accompany the body’s development of it. The understanding shared here may open another possibility alongside medical care: a path of self-healing. At the end, I also offer practical directions for inner work.

What is colitis?

Colitis is an inflammatory disease of the large intestine. It involves inflammation of the colon’s inner lining and may cause pain, diarrhea, bleeding, and other symptoms. The exact cause of ulcerative colitis is not fully known. In conventional medicine it is generally considered an autoimmune condition, meaning the immune system mistakenly attacks the colon.

The name colitis comes from the Greek word for the colon, or large intestine.

How common is it?

Ulcerative colitis affects between 2 and 14 people per 100,000. In Israel, about 50,000 people currently live with the condition.

Symptoms that require attention

Symptoms vary depending on the severity of the condition. Common symptoms include:

• diarrhea
• rectal bleeding
• abdominal pain
• fatigue
• fever
• weight loss
• weakness
• anemia

In some cases, symptoms can also appear outside the digestive system, such as skin rashes, joint pain and swelling, or liver-related illness.

Types of colitis

There are several forms of ulcerative colitis:

• Proctitis – inflammation limited to the rectum, the lower part of the large intestine. This is generally considered the mildest form.
• Proctosigmoiditis – inflammation in the rectum and the lower part of the colon.
• Left-sided colitis – inflammation affecting the left side of the colon.
• Pancolitis – inflammation involving the entire colon. In some cases this is the most severe form.

The difference between ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease

Although ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease can look similar, they are not the same.

Ulcerative colitis affects the lining of the large intestine, while Crohn’s disease can affect the digestive tract more broadly and may involve deeper layers of the bowel wall.

Some of the main differences are:

• Location of inflammation – ulcerative colitis affects the colon, while Crohn’s can affect any part of the digestive tract, from the mouth to the anus.
• Continuity of inflammation – inflammation in ulcerative colitis is usually continuous, while in Crohn’s it may appear in separate areas.
• Depth of inflammation – ulcerative colitis is generally limited to the inner lining, while Crohn’s may affect deeper layers.
• Symptoms – both may cause diarrhea, abdominal pain, blood in the stool, fever, and weight loss. Ulcerative colitis tends to involve more bloody diarrhea, while Crohn’s may involve more severe abdominal pain.

Conventional treatment for colitis

Conventional care may include:

• anti-inflammatory medication
• steroids
• biologic treatments
• surgery, in severe cases, to remove part of the colon

Conventional medicine does not usually speak of a direct cure for colitis, but treatment can help reduce symptoms and improve quality of life.

At the same time, many people feel called to explore what the body may be expressing through the illness, and whether inner emotional work can support healing alongside medical care.

Colitis as the body’s response to emotional conflict

The body may express what we cannot yet resolve

When something in life deeply disturbs us and we feel we cannot change it, confront it, or digest it, an emotional conflict is created. When such a conflict remains unresolved, it can place a burden on the whole biological system.

Emotion matters. What we feel has significance in our lives, and even when we choose not to see it or not to deal with it directly, the body still registers it.

From this perspective, the body does not simply “make a mistake.” Sometimes a symptom, disturbance, or illness can be understood as part of the body’s attempt to cope, adapt, or respond from within.

Working with colitis by exploring the conflict beneath it

Emotional conflicts that may accompany colitis

According to the Recall Healing approach, colitis may be connected with unresolved emotional situations such as:

1. An inability to digest something deeply upsetting or impossible to accept.
   This may describe a person who is living in a situation that feels unbearable, infuriating, or impossible to process.

2. A painful clash in an atmosphere of passivity or helplessness, especially in relation to a dominant person.
   This can appear where someone feels overpowered in a relationship and unable to satisfy, resist, or speak freely in front of a parent, boss, partner, or another controlling figure.

3. A longing for a mother’s love, or fear of losing it.
   Here it is worth looking gently at the bond with the mother: deep love toward a mother who did not express love in return, and the helplessness that can grow around that absence.

From this point of view, colitis may appear in connection with a conflict that returns again and again: I cannot digest this, especially when it is combined with powerlessness, and sometimes with pain connected to the mother.

For example, a person may feel hurt by the way their mother treated them, continue longing for change that never comes, and still deeply want to receive her love.

The link between colitis and the unresolved experience beneath it

When colitis is connected with something that feels ugly, degrading, or impossible to oppose, the symptom may invite us to work with the emotions and beliefs that formed around that experience.

Because colitis is a chronic inflammatory condition of the large intestine, it can be helpful to reflect on whether there are memories involving experiences that felt humiliating, revolting, unbearable, or impossible to speak about.

It may also be worth asking:

• Have I lived through something that felt disgusting, ugly, or deeply offensive?
• Is there something that hurt me that I still cannot say out loud?
• Is there an experience of shame or inner contamination that I never fully processed?
• Is there an unresolved wound in my relationship with my mother?

In this framework, large-intestine inflammation is sometimes linked with experiences perceived as especially “ugly” or hard to digest, such as:

• a bitter divorce
• an ugly conflict over money, property, or inheritance
• betrayal or financial deception
• malicious slander or humiliation
• mean-spirited accusation, especially when someone innocent is blamed unjustly

Colitis as the body’s response to helplessness

A central theme here is helplessness.

When the inner pressure created by helplessness becomes intense, the body may seek a biological expression for what cannot be expressed outwardly.

For example, a person may feel anger or rage that they want to express, but fear that if they do, they will lose closeness, belonging, or love. So the anger is held back, and its energy may seek another channel.

This does not mean every case of colitis is caused by one emotional pattern. It means that for some people, emotional conflict may be an important layer of the healing process and deserves careful attention.

Stories from the clinic

A young woman came to see me after living with colitis for a long time. As we spoke, it became clear that she was an only child raised by a mother who brought her up alone. On the surface, the relationship looked close. At one stage she even moved back to live near her mother. But underneath, the bond was cold and distant. They were in contact, yet there was no real warmth, openness, touch, or emotional closeness.

One of the conflicts sometimes associated with colitis is a deep lack of mother-love. When I shared this possibility with her, she immediately began to cry. At first she did not understand why I was asking about her relationship with her mother rather than focusing only on the colitis itself. But when the emotional meaning became clear, it touched something deep in her.

We did deep work together: emotional processing, energetic work, and consciousness-based work. A month later she contacted me to say that after testing, the colitis was gone.

In another case, a man in his forties came to my clinic. He was a successful artist—charismatic, striking, sensitive—and he had been suffering badly from colitis for several years.

During the session I did an inner scan and the word that came to me was: father.

I knew that colitis can sometimes relate to helplessness in the presence of a dominant figure. I asked him gently about his life. During a long conversation he never mentioned his father. Later I asked directly: And your father? What is your relationship like?

He became very emotional. He told me he was gay and had always known it. In his family, his father was the central authority figure, the one whose word carried the most weight. He said his father spoke harshly about gay people, insulted them openly, and saw them as unworthy.

At the same time, this man loved and admired his father deeply. He was the younger son, cherished by him.

For this client, recognizing the inner conflict was deeply significant. He had never connected the two. That recognition—understanding the illness as connected to an unresolved inner reality—was an important part of his healing process.

In closing: self-healing and the path toward recovery

If you are living with colitis and recognize yourself in some of the conflict patterns described here, you can begin with simple, honest reflection.

Notice what emotions arise in you. Let yourself feel them. Listen for what has been hard to digest, what felt degrading, what was never allowed expression, and where helplessness still lives inside you.

It can be deeply meaningful to shift from seeing the body as betraying you to seeing it as expressing something—perhaps even trying to protect you in the only way it could.

Colitis is not only a physical condition. For some people it may also have an emotional dimension that reveals deep inner conflicts and the biological stress that accompanies them. Understanding that dimension can open new ways of relating to the illness and supporting recovery.

If you are living with colitis and want support, I would be glad to help you in your healing process.