|
Editorial
Anne Blonstein
 Rapidly rising costs in health care, an increasing focus on preventive medicine, the risks, uncertainties and stresses associated with an ever-accelerating globalized world – these are just some of the features of contemporary Western society that may account for the growing attention being paid by both medical professionals and the general public to the interactions between the mind and the body. To how our psychological life impacts, negatively and positively, on our physical health. And vice versa.
There are many manifestations of this interest, ranging from countless alternative therapies which some consider esoteric – if not downright 21st-century quackery – to the hard science of the neurobiology laboratory. This issue of the Gazette cannot address all aspects of the topic, and its focus is largely a medical one. We open with a historical account of the mind-body relationship in Western philosophy and science, tracing in particular the changing fortunes in concepts of the mind-body partnership from the 17th to the early 20th century. This is followed by a review of the status of psychosomatics today, with a plea for the integration of this field into general medicine. The issue closes with two “case studies” – one on the placebo effect and one on the consequences of trauma – both of which provide fascinating insight from different perspectives on the interconnections and mutual influences of our psyches and somas.
With its biomedical emphasis, the aim of this Gazette is to offer readers some sense of what is currently known about the physiology, chemistry and neurobiology of mind-body interactions, but we hope it will also stimulate reflection on the challenges still posed to this field.
Perhaps one of these challenges remains a conceptual, even a linguistic one. By continuing to refer to the mind and body as two entities – a problem somewhat overcome in the terms psychosomatics and biopsychology – the danger remains of reducing the mind’s processes and activities to purely bodily ones, because it is scientifically and methodologically feasible, for example, to measure and quantify them in the form of electrical signals or chemical reactions. In this pursuit, nonobjectifiable properties of our mental worlds, of our memories and imagination, may be neglected, ignored or, at least, not fully accounted for. As research continues into this intriguing, and yet far from resolved relationship, its interdisciplinarity may need to expand beyond the compass of medical scientists, psychologists and philosophers to embrace the work and insights of e.g. visual artists, musicians and writers. Such a reintegration of “the two cultures,” in C.P. Snow’s phrase, may ultimately yield some of the most productive advances in both our understanding of ourselves, and in medical care.
|
