Contemporary Psychoanalytic Understanding of Psychosomatic Illness

Abstract

This interdisciplinary seminar will explore the range of psychosomatic disorders that are commonly encountered. It will briefly describe our understanding of how mental processes interact with the body and how certain types of stress can precipitate bodily malfunction and somatic pathology. It will examine current psychoanalytic understanding of personality in relation to psychosomatic conditions (both functional and structural) and how this understanding has shaped psychoanalytic technique with psychosomatic patients.

Speaker biography

Peter Shoenberg is an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy at Camden Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Service and was formerly Head of the University College London Hospital Psychotherapy Service. He is a senior member of the British Psychotherapy Foundation and works privately as a Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist and is a trustee of the Squiggle Foundation. He is also Student Psychotherapy Liason Officer for the Royal College of Psychiatrists Student Psychotherapy Liason Committee. He has written "Psychosomatics. The Uses of Psychotherapy in Psychosomatic Disorders" (Palgrave Macmillan 2007) and jointly edited "Learning about Emotions in Illness. Integrating Psychotherapeutic Teaching in Medical Education" (Routledge 2014).