Psychosomatic medicine in the 21st century: understanding mechanisms and barriers to utilization.

Psychosomatic medicine in the 21st century: understanding mechanisms and barriers to utilization. Adv Psychosom Med. 2015;34:1-9 Authors: Wise TN, Balon R Abstract The psychosomatic approach arose in antiquity as mankind looked for explanations for illness and death. With the rise of modern medicine, the links between emotions and medical conditions, such as cardiac disease and diabetes, were described by astute clinical observers, but the mechanisms for these conditions were based on correlation from observations rather than on experimental design. Psychoanalytic theory was often utilized to explain many common diseases. For example, peptic ulcer disease was blamed upon anger and stress, but scientific methodology discovered Helicobacter pylori to be the significant causal factor of this disease and resulted in the development of more effective treatments. Nevertheless emotional factors are still linked to disease states and morbidity; for example, depression is a risk factor for mortality following myocardial infarction. Advances in neuroscience demonstrate that the reduction of telomere length by anxiety and stress leads to more rapid aging and potential disease vulnerability. Thus, neuroscientific probes may allow for the elucidation of psychosomatic mechanisms. Sadly, clinical barriers, in terms of time pressure upon physicians and the current separation of mental health services from primary care settings, continue the dualisti...
Source: Advances in Psychosomatic Medicine - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Adv Psychosom Med Source Type: research