Abstract

CASETTO, Sidnei José. On the importance of becoming ill: an overview of the psychoanalytic psychosomatics in the 20th century. Psyche (Sao Paulo) [online]. 2006, vol.10, n.17, pp. 121-142. ISSN 1415-1138.

The objective of this article is to present an overview of the psychoanalytic psychosomatics in the 20th century. The development of ideas in this area is shown, from the first incursions of Ferenczi to the most recent theories of C. Dejours. Conceptions of the somatic symptoms as a symbolic representative of the psycho conflicts (Groddeck) are examined; as well as the psychosomatic medicine of Alexander and the principles of the “psychosomatic disorders”; the epistemological rupture from the School of Paris (Marty) with the proposition of the absence of meaning of the disorder; and the contributions of J. McDougall and C. Dejours, that try to recover the dimension of the meaning of the somatic symptom, without considering it as due to repression. Finally, hypothesis about the general movement of these theorizations and the tendency of the current psychoanalytic psychosomatics are shown.

Keywords : Psychosomatics; History of psychosomatics; Somatization; Meaning of symptom; Psychosomatic disorder.

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