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Phenomenology of the Body

The Subject-Object Problem in Psychosomatic Medicine and the Role of Traditional Medical Systems herein

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Anthropologies of Medicine

Abstract

When in 1985 I returned from China and reported that traditional Chinese doctors manage to elicit emotional changes by analyzing the specific cluster of the patient’s bodily symptoms (emotion-bodily symptom specificity) this message was met with disbelief by many of the psychosomatically oriented physicians, and vehemently rejected by almost all medical anthropologists I spoke to. This rejection of the Chinese model of psychosomatic specificity, and that of similar models, e.g., between bodily changes and psychodynamic conflicts (Alexander 1948, 1968), or personality traits (Dunbar 1954), was paired with a deep belief that many diseases bear symbolic meaning, thus constructing a very specific, symbolic relation between sociocultural events and the diseased body. This position is best expressed in the work of Geertz (1973).

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Authors
  1. Thomas Ots
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Ethnologie, Universität Hamburg, Rothenbaumchaussee 64a, D-2000, Hamburg 13, Germany

    Beatrix Pfleiderer Ph.D. (Professor) (Professor)

  2. Department of Anthropology, Départment d’ Anthropologie, Université de Montréal, Succursale A, C.P. 6128, H3C 3J7, Montréal, Québec, Canada

    Gilles Bibeau Ph.D. (Professor of Anthropology and Chair) (Professor of Anthropology and Chair)

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© 1991 Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Braunschweig

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Ots, T. (1991). Phenomenology of the Body. In: Pfleiderer, B., Bibeau, G. (eds) Anthropologies of Medicine. Vieweg+Teubner Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-87859-5_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-87859-5_5

  • Publisher Name: Vieweg+Teubner Verlag

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-528-07820-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-322-87859-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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