Looking for a Different Medicine

Psychosomatic Medicine in the 20th Century

What makes mind and body strong? Headlines like this are everywhere. Backache, breathlessness, skin rashes – we ascribe many physical complaints to emotional upheaval, too little mindfulness or long-term stress. But where do these concepts of psychosomatic medicine come from? This book provides the first overview of the history of psychosomatic medicine in Germany. Incisive chapters offer a panorama of the varieties of psychosomatics in the 20th century, while also portraying it as a form of medicine which saw itself as the more humane alternative to modern hi-tech, and therefore supposedly soulless, medicine.

Alexa Geisthövel/Bettina Hitzer (Hg.) Looking for a Different Medicine. Psychosomatic Medicine in the 20th Century., stw 2019.