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By the end of 2003, six years will have passed since the first Swedish group started on its adventure to study the newly opened arena within psychoanalysis of body–mind and consciousness studies. In 2004 we hope to be able to evaluate and draw some conclusions from this experience. We will then be happy to report our insights in this forum; but until then the groups will continue their work as related below.
The original Body–Mind Study Group turned, at the beginning of 2003, to a semiotic study of the old nature/culture questions, ranging from the biochemical level within cell structures (mitochondria, etc.) to animal and human behavior. We are using Jesper Hoffmeyer's book Life-Signs: The Natural History of Meaning as our guide (Hoffmeyer is professor of molecular biochemistry in Copenhagen). The group is chaired by Iréne Matthis.
During the spring term of 2003, the nine members of the Study Group on the Philosophy of Psychology, guided by the philosopher Lars-Göran Johansson, read and discussed Ian Hacking's Social Construction of What? Next on our agenda, for the start of the autumn term, is the JAPA 47/2 paper by Charles Hanly, “On Subjectivity and Objectivity.”
In the spring of 2003, the PsychoAnalytical PsychoSomatic group (PAPS), chaired by Iréne Matthis, conducted seminars on two different occasions—an evening session and one full day program. The group has continued to meet in the enlarged form started during autumn 2003 with 15 participants from different professions: psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, somaticians, and neuropsychologists, all interested in the subject of body–mind relationships in somatic diseases.
At the full-day seminar the method of doing a pathobiography, as it is used at the Weizsäcker Institute in Buenos Aires, was presented. To illustrate the method, a clinical case of severe hemorrhoid suffering, investigated at the Weizsäcker Institute, was presented. The theoretical background proposed by Louis Chiozza