The author offers devastating but careful reflections on the splendorous years just past in psychosomatic medicine. He notes the fading of enthusiasm for correlating particular diseases with specific personalities, specific test configurations, and other variations on the themes of oversimplified specificity. He makes some incisive criticisms of psychosomatic research and deplores publications based upon poorly conceived research and findings without cross-validation. However the author cautions lest disillusionment breed discouragement: '… even a science has its learning plateau when further progress is seen only dimly and when a latency phase can be mistaken for stagnation'. He calls for longitudinal scope and multidisciplinary future research, and the abandonment of 'naïve conceptions of specificity'.