Jean Benjamin Stora – författare

Integrative psychosomatics is a new approach to explaining illnesses and how patients relate to their problems. This new discipline draws on psychoanalysis, medicine and the neurosciences, rather than solely on psychoanalysis, which has inspired all the psychosomatic approaches until now. Amongst the fascinating and compelling questions that this book raises are: how can we understand an illness if we only analyse the psyche? How can we understand patients if we only take account of their biological data? Are hypochondriac problems generated by the mind, as some doctors believe, or are the problems in fact more complex? The author also considers whether traditional psychoanalysis and medicine might actually distance practitioners from an understanding of patients and illnesses. For integrative psychosomatics, the psyche or the mind can play either a greater or lesser role in illness: advances in research in the neurosciences and biology over the last twenty years have uncovered many biological and genetic processes involved in the relations between the central nervous system and the other systems that constitute the human psychosomatic entity. Consequently, we can now understand illnesses much better and care for patients with regard to how they relate to their illnesses.

Integrative psychosomatics is a new approach to explaining illnesses and how patients relate to their problems. This new discipline draws on psychoanalysis, medicine and the neurosciences, rather than solely on psychoanalysis, which has inspired all the psychosomatic approaches until now. Amongst the fascinating and compelling questions that this book raises are: how can we understand an illness if we only analyse the psyche? How can we understand patients if we only take account of their biological data? Are hypochondriac problems generated by the mind, as some doctors believe, or are the problems in fact more complex? The author also considers whether traditional psychoanalysis and medicine might actually distance practitioners from an understanding of patients and illnesses. For integrative psychosomatics, the psyche or the mind can play either a greater or lesser role in illness: advances in research in the neurosciences and biology over the last twenty years have uncovered many biological and genetic processes involved in the relations between the central nervous system and the other systems that constitute the human psychosomatic entity. Consequently, we can now understand illnesses much better and care for patients with regard to how they relate to their illnesses.

Jean Benjamin Stora has worked as a psychoanalyst and psychosomatist for almost five decades. The aim of integrative psychosomatics is to heal the body and mind in relationship to one another rather than treating the body as a machine with parts to be fixed. Thus, Stora explores a patient’s current and past life history in relation to physical illness and offers therapeutic support alongside medical treatments. To better understand this revolutionary approach, Stora presents fifteen case studies from the past twenty years. We read of George suffering from hyperlipidemia; Giles, a diabetic facing amputation; Elvira, an alcoholic; Dorothy, who complains the doctors treat body parts but not her; Beatrice facing a reappearance of breast cancer; and ten further patients. This complex process takes into account the fundamental role of the central nervous system in the relationship of mind and body. Thus, neuroscience is a key component of this holistic approach, as well as the new discipline of neuropsychoanalysis. This is most clearly shown in the case of Emma, suffering after brain surgery.The Psychosomatic Therapy Casebook is an excellent introduction to integrative psychosomatics. The stories presented in the first four chapters can be read by anyone with an interest in the subject. The fifth and final chapter is aimed at psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, and doctors looking to gain a greater understanding of the practice. It contains a comprehensive review of the technical points involved and clearly shows the difference between psychoanalytic technique and the technique of psychosomatic therapy. This is an important book in learning to treat the person as a whole rather than split into mind and body.