ABSTRACT
This chapter presents psychosomatic symptoms as a form of partial or blocked communication – a muffled cry for help that needs creative and open-minded attention in order to be understood. It shows how with the right stance and skills, psychosomatic symptoms, exemplified by psychosexual symptoms, can be read as a hidden story in need of a listener. Although innocent enough in its etymological origins, where it simply points to the indissoluble connection between mind and body, the word psychosomatic has frequently been used in confusing, stigmatising and uninformative ways. The task of psychosexual medical treatment is to help a person first complete the job of expressing, and then hearing, their own story. In psychosexual medicine, this is done using the combined skills of medicine and psychodynamic therapy, in a process which requires the practitioner to think and feel at the same time.
