Society for Integrative Psychosomatics

"The human being is a psychosomatic unit

What to do in the face of illness and the sick body? Until today, allopathic medicine or complementary medicine could answer this question, but only partially. Treating the body while ignoring the existence of the spirit's defenses as well as the life environment of the patients can only lead to incomplete care. The reasons for recurrences and relapses are often not understood! The defenses of the mind or psychic system, together with the defenses of the immune system, allow a person to better cope with the disease and to better heal himself. We must exclude the idea that the mind alone can cause illnesses; it certainly participates in them but is never the sole cause. "All diseases are psychosomatic.

Based on the systems theory (L. von Bertalanffy), J.-B. Stora developed the approach of "integrative psychosomatics" which dynamically links psychoanalysis, medicine and neuroscience in order to explain the processes of somatization, by proposing the theory of the five systems: the psychic system, the central nervous system, the autonomic nervous system, the immune system and the genetic system. In this model, the psychic system participates in somatization without being the cause. This is a multicausal approach to illness.

A new model of the functioning of the mind in relation to the sick body: integrative psychosomatics is a scientific approach at the crossroads of metapsychology, medicine, and neuroscience with reference to new disciplines such as psycho-neuro-immunology, psycho-neuro-endocrinology, neuro-psychoanalysis, etc. It is the study of the interrelations between medicine, psychoanalysis of the archaic phase of development, and neuroscience in order to better understand the pathologies of somatic patients.

Mental defenses are a defense system alongside the immune system. The strengthening of mental defenses protects human beings from diseases and their severe forms.