In this review of current psychosomatic concepts, the author points out the growing disenchantment with specificity theories and his own dissatisfaction with extant partial explanations for somatic response. He briefly reviews the outstanding theoretical contributions, among which he finds Schur's ideas concerning ego regression and desomatization of anxiety, aggression, and libido most congenial, along with selected views of Margolin, Mirsky, and Deutsch.

Psychosomatic states may be viewed as states of ego regression associated with somatic regression to more primitive levels of physiological function. The genesis of psychosomatic disease seems to lie in the earliest stages of infancy, as psychic structure and patterns of somatic function develop out of a poorly differentiated psychophysiological anlage.