Psychosomatic Medicine 21:1-7 (1959)
© 1959 American Psychosomatic Society

Some Remarks About Somato-Psychic Compared to Psychosomatic Relationships

¹ Medical Service, Veterans Administration Hospital Bedford, Mass. and the Department of Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Mass.

Somato-psychic medicine refers to all those processes in which psychological phenomena are produced by alterations of the body's anatomy or physiology.

It is often extremely difficult to determine the first cause of a psychic disturbance, since somatic influences may produce psychic phenomena, and these in turn may produce somatic processes, and vice versa. These relationships are graphically portrayed for a few well-known clinical pictures.

At times it is possible, by analysis of the manifestations presented, to discover evidence of the various influences. Under certain conditions, however, a later process may exert such overwhelming effects in the temporal succession of events that the influence of earlier factors may not be manifest in the clinical picture.

A simple classification of the various somato-psychic influences in three groups is presented for better visualization. The first group is comprised of processes taking place within the confines of the skull. The second is represented by those disease processes that are anatomically located extracranially but where changed metabolites or other agents exert influence on the brain cells with subsequent psychic signs. Drugs and other substances brought from outside into the body and exerting influence on the brain may be regarded as a subgroup of factors belonging to this second group. The third group comprises psychic processes that represent conscious or unconscious reactions by the individuals to somatic diseases or to permanent bodily conditions.

The correlation of somatic abnormalities and psychological disturbance is, of course, not exhausted by psychosomatic and somato-psychic relationships, since a certain body build and a particular psychological make-up may be expressions of the same constitution.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				D. S. Krantz The Social Context of Obesity Research: Another Perspective on Its Place in the Field of Social Psychology Pers Soc Psychol Bull, January 1, 1978; 4(1): 177 - 184. [Abstract]