ABSTRACT
Illness and somatic disturbances are manifestations of the human psychosomatic unit. In the framework of this unit, psychic and organic phenomena develop in nets of dynamic and economic processes that bear the mark of organization or of disorganization. This chapter considers somatic process that belongs to a stream independent of those in which mental phenomena and behavioural manifestations develop. It refers to somatization processes that are outside the realm of hysterical conversion or hypochondria and are, in principle, asymbolic, even though they may acquire a symbolic value in the course of psychotherapeutic work. Psychoanalytic theory has proposed that the energy that is at the disposal of each psychosomatic unit and that manifests itself in our sensorimotor activities, as well as in the activity of our brain and neurosystems undergoes a series of transformations on the psychic level.
