Beyond the dualism of soul and body

Psychoanalytical psychosomatics

Abstract

This article is devoted to the revolutionary ideas of the psychosomaticists of the Paris school, who have revolutionized the views on the former concepts of psychosomatic factors, creating a new theoretical construction, the heart of which can be considered Sigmund Freud's metapsychology, that is psychoanalytic logic, based on three classical dimensions – topical, dynamic and economic. Psychosomatics of the Paris School propose extending the classical construct and adding a new evolutionist dimension beyond mental functioning. The new model proposed by the founders of the Paris School differs from that proposed by post-Freudian authors who investigated soul and body. For example, Franz Alexander proposes a dualistic model of psychosomatic medicine based on the connection between two heterogeneous logics of functioning – mental and organic functioning. Psychosomatics of the Paris School bring a different psychosomatic model, based on a monistic concept that unites the psyche and the soma in a single psychoanalytic logic, beyond the dualism of soul and body.