ABSTRACT
The mind-body problem is one of the oldest problems in philosophy, tossed around for centuries and disputed by the most illustrious minds without finding a solution. “Psychosomatic,” however, means nothing else than the mind-body problem expressed in medical terms. This chapter shows that inconsistencies and paradoxes in modern psychiatry are largely due to the fact that psychological theory is determined by an obsolete dualism of body and mind. The problem of body and mind was up till now in the domain of philosophy, a playground for more or less skillful conceptual acrobatics. According to developmental psychology, the dualism between external world and ego, self-evident as it may appear, is in fact the outcome of a long development. The object-subject differentiation becomes much clearer when we come to social and child psychology. The dichotomy in psychiatric therapy between physical and psychological methods is a consequence of the philosophical antithesis of body and mind.
