身体化の心理療法 : 心身症概念の批判的検討を通して

Abstract

Psychosomatic illness has thus far been comprehended in contrast to neurosis with somatic symptoms. Recently, however~ doubts had been cast on the significance of this way of understanding. Therefore, this study notes "somatization", i.e., the characteristics that are common to those who experience and express their problems by body. It argues the psychotherapy for somatization by critically reviewing the past remarks made on psychosomatic illness. Previous studies regarded the split between the mind and body as the cause of psychosomatic illnesses and have termed it as pathological "dissociation". They maintained a denial of the split, the psychologically inevitable consequence of man gaining consciousness, and tried to establish a connection between mind and body to recover the primordial wholeness. However, the pathological essence of somatization does not lie in the split, but rather in the undifferentiated states, where mind and body have not yet split up and established individually; or, the "subject" has not yet appeared. In psychotherapy for somatization, the emergence of the subject is necessary to contain the problems that are experienced and expressed by the body as psychological ones. It is suggested that the subject will emerge only through the negation of body, which splits the mind and body.