You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
February 22, 1982. CONTRIBUTIONS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS TO PSYCHOSOMATIC MEDICINE. (The Melitta Sperling Lecture). Herbert Weiner, M.D.
In exploring psychoanalytic contributions to the field of psychosomatic medicine, Dr. Weiner traced the elements with which analysts have increasingly concerned themselves, as behavior, adaptive capacities, and object relations have become subjects of vital interest. He discussed the degree to which psychoanalytic theories and models of psychosomatic disease have been borne out by the empirical data of nonanalytic studies. The modern conceptualization of the psychosomatic approach is necessarily an integrative and general theory of the etiology and maintenance of illness and health. It involves such interrelated phenomena as the "cultural, human, social and physical environment in which persons live … [and their] genetic endowment, life experiences, education … intelligence and personal conflicts" which render them more or less able to "resist, overcome or cope with the impact of environmental events on their minds." Unlike other subspecialties of medicine, psychosomatic medicine cannot study the diseases with which it is concerned independently of the persons in whom they occur. Unifactorial theories are incorrect and incomplete, although in any one disease social or psychological factors may take relative precedence.
Psychoanalytic contributions can be divided into three broad areas—the choice of disease, factors in the vulnerability to illness, and the nature of the conditions necessary to the onset of an illness. These categories derive from