THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE SELF-IMAGE WITH PSYCHOSOMATIC DISORDERS IN TERMS OF VARIOUS PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES

Abstract

Health today determines the specifics and situation of modern society, which is determined by the impact of socio-economic, environmental, geopolitical, and demographic crises and the state of mental and nervous tension, and prolonged stress, increasing the level of specific diseases. Health is increasingly recognized not only as the highest value but also as a social problem.

In the early nineteenth century, the term «psychosomatics» appeared in Anglo-American medicine, which was proposed in 1818 by J. Heinroth, who explained somatic diseases with psychogenic aetiology. Thus, for example, he considered the causes of tuberculosis, epilepsy and cancer because of anger, shame and sexual suffering. It took a hundred years for this term to be used by doctors.

In the modern world, the definition of the term «psychosomatics» should be given based on the meaning of its constituent words (Greek psyche - soul, soma - body). These are primarily functional disorders of internal organs or systems of the human body, the formation and course of which are associated with the peculiarities of the mental response of the personality, or those that develop because of stress, mental trauma and other psychological factors.

Over time, several psychosomatic theories have emerged in response to the needs of medical practice. Consequently, there is a dualistic consideration of bodily phenomena: on the one hand, they must be objectified in medical terminology, and on the other hand, medicine is unable to explain a significant part of them.