Psychosomatic Medicine 28:297-304 (1966)
© 1966 American Psychosomatic Society

Systems and Psychosomatics

An Introduction to "Psychosomatic Manifestations of Rapport in Psychotherapy"

¹ Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute, and Temple University Medical Center, Philadelphia, Pa.

The paper by E. J . Charny ("Psychosomatic Manifestations of Rapport in Psychotherapy") which follows in this issue is not a psychosomatic study in the traditional sense. Charny does not assess psychological states or measure and correlate physiological variables as is usually done. Yet obviously there is some cogent reason for his work to have been published in PSYCHOSOMATIC MEDICINE.

Nor can Charny's work be assigned to other classical traditions of medical or psychological research. Although he is a psychoanalyst by training he does not base his work on psychodynamic inference, and even though his observational field is a psychotherapy session, his method could not properly be called clinical research. He focuses upon behavior, but not in the beliaviorist, neobehaviorist, or behavioral therapy traditions of psychological research. In fact, his method is not that of any experimental psychology, for he does not isolate variables. Rather, he describes units of individual behavior in a social context.

Charny studies social interaction, but not in order to define social structure per se. He uses the social relationship as a context to determine the meaning of individual behavior. It is obvious that he is relying upon some theory of the organism and some method of study that is basically different from the classical approaches of the psychological and clinical sciences. His work reflects a systems view of behavior and his methodology is a modern variant of the natural history approach that has evolved to synthesize elements and conceptualize systems as wholes.

In a systems view, classical divisions like social, behavioral, and physiological have a different relationship whereby psyche and soma are not seen dichotomously. Since the behavior of the organism as a whole is seen in a social context, somatic processes come to have a different location in the conceptual schema. They are investigated at another stage of the research procedure and in quite another context. Charny does not decide not to assess traditional physiological and mental processes because they have no place in a systems view, but because they are approached at a level that Charny has not included in this particular study.

The important issue is not whether or not Charny's work is actually a psychosomatic study, but whether or not it gives us a fresh start on some old and vexing problems. It will be seen that it docs. In summary, Charny's work depicts a structure or framework into which both psychic and somatic data will fit. His application of the systems mew to the study of posture is a most welcome example in a new and most welcome trend.

Since I, too, have been active in this approach, the editors invited me to write this introduction.