Definition
Psychosomatic is defined as one involving or depending on both the mind and the body as mutually dependent entities.
The term has been used to refer to the following:
- 1.
Physical disorders, those caused or aggravated by psychological factors and, less often, to mental disorders caused or aggravated by physical factors
- 2.
The branch of medicine concerned with the mind-body relations
- 3.
The field of study, one sometimes designated “psychosomatics,” concerned with the relationship between mind and body
Description
It is said that the foundation for psychosomatic movement was laid 2,500 years ago in ancient Greece.
In the fifth century BC, Hippocratic principles emphasized what we consider to be some of the basic tenets of psychosomatic medicine: concern about the relationship between the physician and the patient and about importance of the environment and of the adaptive factors in health and disease.
Francis Bacon advocated investigation of the mental faculties and of the...
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References and Readings
Kannel, W. B., & Eaker, E. D. (1986). Psychosocial and other features of coronary heart disease: Insight from Framingham study. American Heart Journal, 112(5), 1066–1073.
Lipowski, Z. J. (1984). What does the word “Psychosomatic” Really mean? A historical and semantic inquiry. Psychosomatic Medicine, 46(2), 153–171.
Schwab, J. J. (1985). Psychosomatic medicine: Its past and present. Psychosomatics, 26(7), 583–593.
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© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media, New York
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Ito, M. (2013). Psychosomatic. In: Gellman, M.D., Turner, J.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1005-9_423
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1005-9_423
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-1004-2
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