ABSTRACT
A surge of object relations theories and empirical studies of infancy and toddlerhood made the vicissitudes of relationship a central focus for investigators of psychosomatic symptom formation, and analysts began to wonder about the impact of social stresses on mental states and bodily conditions. Ulcer, one of the iconic "psychosomatic" diseases identified by the Franz Alexander group, had long been thought to be a consequence of too much gastric acid secretion, which psychoanalytic psychosomaticians linked firmly to repressed affective needs and desires. The field of analytic psychosomatics arose out of the dualistic Cartesian preoccupations of the late nineteenth century, but its development after that was shaped less by philosophy than by the cultural and interpersonal styles of its founders. After the rift of 1913, the French perspective on psychosomatic studies became more and more distinctive. Pierre Marty's views on symbolization are fundamental to French psychoanalysis, and especially to French psychosomatics.
