ABSTRACT
Medicine distinguishes the identifiable "signs" that point to illnesses from symptoms that have no detectable physical cause. Medicine is however less interested in human symptoms than it is in actual "signs" of illness and disease. Patients tend to consult physicians and psychotherapists when they suffer physical or psychological symptoms. Halfway through the twentieth century psychopharmacology began to designate a kind of intermediate class of symptoms. The psychotherapist then sees the symptom as not "just" a symptom. Sometimes a disabling symptom or ill health is the best solution to a problem that the psyche has so far been able to devise. The combat metaphor wears particularly thin when people apply it to non-deadly conditions such as the common cold. In these cases people can see that the power of psychotherapeutic attending to the metaphor represents a deeper resolution and a more profound degree of healing than would a course of antibiotics.
