History of pyschosomatic medicine and current classifications

Abstract:

In a long history of medicine, body and mind were always inseparably connected. Only recently, with a “scientific” approach to medicine, the somatic has been put in the centre of interest, while the psychological component has been neglected. Freud’s theory of psychic apparatus is deeply rooted in biological view of human beings as a derivative of scientific approach from the end of 20th century. As early as the beginning of the 19th century, Coleridge and Heinroth used the word “psychosomatic”, but only in the work of analysts Franz Alexander and Helen Flanders Dunbar has this expression become one of the basic medical terms. Early psychosomatic physicians believed that disease is a product of particular emotional conflicts or personality. This simplistic approach to psychosomatic medicine is being abandoned in the context of ever more sophisticated research and understanding of psychology and physiology of mind/body relationship. Additionally, results of research in the relationship between stress and disease show that many physiological changes are caused by psychosocial factors. Current understanding of psychosomatics takes into account the interaction between physical and psychic in all disorders and diseases. 

Key words:
history, psychoanalysis; neurosciences; psychosomatic medicine