Once something is registered as physical pain, it's pain. I differentiate physical from mental as where it begins ... did mental anguish, negative thinking etc cause me to tense up or become angry or fearful and thus began a cascading effect to the body? But as I said, once it is interpreted by the body as pain, you deal with it as physical pain, because it is.

There is no pure separation of mind and body. Ca't be done.

Continue to work on your thought processes ... realizing there is a connection is the first step. Trying to catch the mental pain before you assimilate it into the body comes soon.

I compare this to my migraines. In the beginning I would try and figure out what caused the migraine (thus determining if I can make it go away or if it's legitimate.) Of course, once I have a migraine, it doesn't matter what caused it when it comes to treating it. Whether it's a "normal" migraine or one that's opthalmolgic, the treatment is the same. After the migraine is gone, then I can try to assess whether I could have avoided it or not.