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.
The interaction of psychic and somatic processes has been a central concern of psychoanalysis from its initial formulations (Freud, 1895, 1900) to the present day. In contrast to Freud's time, the interaction of emotion and somatic illness is now also recognized in the medical field. It is not only the special disorders identified as hysterias, nor even the medical entities traditionally classified as psychosomatic that are affected by such interaction; the field of psychoneuroimmunology supports the view that
All disease is multifactoral and biopsychosocial in onset and course—the result of interrelationships among specific etiologic (e.g., bacteria, viruses, carcinogens), genetic, endocrine, nervous, immune, emotional, and behavioral factors [Solomon, 1987, p. 1].
The potential scope of psychoanalytic treatment is enormously expanded by these developments; the need for a coherent psychoanalytic theory is intensified as well, to bring psychological understanding of the interactions among cognition, emotion, and somatic functions in line with advances in the medical field.
Freud's metapsychology has failed as a basis for a modern scientific theory. The postulates of the energy theory have been tested only