Phenomenological Features of Psychosomatic Disorders

Abstract

Phenomenologically oriented psychosomatics means that the disease is understood as a limitation of individual freedom which affects the patient's existence as a whole. Thus, the primary concern is not the search for its psychogenesis, but based on the meaning-content of the disease, an attempt is made at clarifying in what way the patient relates to the world at a given moment in time. This touches upon the gesture-character of the disorder. In this context, the question arises as to how the choice of disease and the specificity of the organ have to be interpreted. Thus, phenomenologically oriented Daseinsanalysis rejects the dualism of psyche and soma; it understands the bodily disease as an “embodying” of ill-attuned world-relations.