Da Costa Syndrome or Cardiac neurosis is a condition in which cardiovascular symptoms are caused by physical or emotional stress but may also be caused by conditions such as mitral valve prolapse and autonomic hyperactivity. The syndrome is often seen in soldiers during times of stress or in young adults who suffer emotional stress.
Cardiac neurosis is an anxiety reaction characterized by quick fatigue, shortness of breath, rapid heartbeat, dizziness, and other cardiac symptoms, but not caused by disease of the heart. Some people complain of pain over the heart, or the heart area, who do not have the slightest sign of any real disturbance of the heart.
Doctors call this a cardiac neurosis, and credit it to abnormal anxiety about the heart. Such pains are not related to effort or work of the heart. They are usually accentuated by fatigue and emotional stresses. There various drug treatments available for this condition. But Systematic desensitization, a type of behavioural therapy, may be more effective than drugs, especially if it includes encouragement, instruction, and suggestion.
Systemic Desensitisation: In this procedure, events which cause anxiety are recalled in imagination, and then a relaxation technique is used to dissipate the anxiety. With sufficient repetition through practice, the imagined event loses its anxiety-provoking power. At the end of training, when you actually face the real event, you will find that it too, just like the imagined event, has lost its power to make you anxious.
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