Psychosomatic Medicine - History of Psychosomatics

History of Psychosomatics

In the medieval Islamic world the Persian Muslim psychologist-physicians Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi (d. 934) and Haly Abbas (d. 994) developed an early understanding of illness that was due to the interaction of the mind and the body. They realized how a patient's physiology and psychology can have an effect on one another. They found correlations between patients who were physically and mentally healthy and between those who were physically and mentally ill.

Franz Alexander led in the beginnings of the 20th century, the movement looking for the dynamic interrelation between mind and body. Sigmund Freud pursued a deep interest in psychosomatic illnesses following his correspondence with Georg Groddeck who was, at the time, researching the possibility of treating physical disorders through psychological processes.

Since the 1970s, due to the work of Thure von Uexküll and his colleagues in Germany and elsewhere, biosemiotic theory has been used as a theoretical basis for psychosomatic medicine. Particularly, the umwelt concept and the theory of organism by Jakob von Uexküll has been found useful as an approach to describe psychosomatic phenomena.