Psychosomatics within the biomedical paradigm and within the perspective of medical anthropology

Journal title PSICOTERAPIA E SCIENZE UMANE
Author/s Contributi di Pietro Pascarelli
Publishing Year 2012 Issue 2012/3
Language Italian Pages 14 P. 389-402 File size 198 KB
DOI 10.3280/PU2012-003003
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The biomedical paradigm, in which psychosomatics is embedded, is based on a mind-body dichotomy and on a universalistic and ahistorical conception of body. Psychosomatics indeed presents an "aseptic" and decontextualized vision in witch illness and body are deprived of any symbolic, social and political value. The perspective of medical anthropology allows for a new paradigm and a critical reading of clinical phenomenology in a non-dualistic key, where the concept of "somatization" is substituted by the concept of "embodiment". In this view, the body ceases to be a mere inscription of symbolic contents, and becomes the place where economy, power and inequality show their embodied effects.

Keywords: Psychosomatics, somatization, medical anthropology, embodiment, paradigm

Contributi di Pietro Pascarelli, La psicosomatica nel paradigma biomedico e nella prospettiva dell’antropologia medica in "PSICOTERAPIA E SCIENZE UMANE" 3/2012, pp 389-402, DOI: 10.3280/PU2012-003003