Valuable contributions to the vast field of psychosomatic medicine have been made by neuroanatomists, neurophysiologists, geneticists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, internists, endocrinologists, pediatricians, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists and many others. This paper is not intended to cover these multifarious approaches; it confines itself, in accordance with the locale and the occasion, to contributions to the field of psychosomatic medicine made by psychoanalysts.

In particular, it is devoted to the contributions of psychoanalysts to psychosomatic theory, to the vicissitudes which these concepts have undergone and to teaching them at psychoanalytic institutes. Consequently, our paper is divided into two main sections: one dealing with a description and critical evaluation of psychoanalytic psychosomatic concepts and the other with the teaching of them.

* Presented at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, May 23, 1962.