'7-1 



HANDBOOK OF I'll YSIOI.OC Y 



NEUROPHYSIOLOGY III 



lems pertaining to the word 'psychosomatic,' from 

 which 'psychosomatics' is derived. 1 This will at tin- 

 same time provide background for considering what 

 constitutes a 'psychological process,' a question that 

 is so fundamental to the 'mind-body' problem and to 

 the methodological approach to psychosomatics. 



In an enduring polemic which seems a little dated, 

 one will hear it argued that the term psychosomatic 

 represents a lawless marriage between the words 

 ■psyche' and 'soma.' Now, as in the past, the term 

 continues to be dragged into intellectual court because 

 of breaking the peace of mind of those who contend 

 that it seeds into people's thinking an inadmissible 

 dualism. In spite of this, the marriage has lasted over 

 a ioo years- and, because of the popularization it has 

 received by psychiatry and medicine during the past 

 three decades, has gained a wide public acceptance. 



Words are tools for thought. The existing definitions 

 of 'psyche' and 'soma' allow sufficient leeway for 

 selection and modification of meanings to permit and 

 justify their continued union for the purpose of con- 

 ceptualizing the mind-body problem with which we 

 are concerned. 



Soma 



The word soma itself is easily manageable. If used 

 adjectively in its original meaning, and not in the 

 restricted sense of physiologists, it is entirely suitable 

 for the linguistic purposes of the present discourse. It 

 has become common practice for physiologists to use 

 'somatic' to distinguish the striated musculature or its 

 controlling systems from the viscera and their regu- 

 lating agencies, formerly the word was used to apply 

 only to the body as a whole or, in accordance with 

 Weismann's definition of 1H89, to all the tissues of the 

 bod) exclusive of the germ cells. When so employed, 

 n appropriately embraces the entire 'body viscus' 

 with which psychosomatics is concerned. 



Psyt hi 



1 1 is only when proceeding to handle the word 

 l>s\( he and its conjunction with soma that one enters 



1 In the course of this exposition which represents a new 

 approach to old problems, the reader will recognize that some 

 psychological terms are given connotations quite different 



from their conventional meanings. 



•As fai as Margetts lias been able to discover, the word 

 'psychosomatic' was lust used l>\ Heinroth in 1818 (45). Be- 

 tween then and 1934 he has uncovered 18 authors who sol i- 

 tently used the term. He notes that "it turns up in a few 

 ii .11.11 ies about 1901 1 



a verbal arena where one must make a real struggle to 

 avoid being impaled on the horns of a dilemma. 

 Psyche stems from the Greek word \l/vxv which origi- 

 nally had the same meaning as 'breath' (exhalation, 

 odor). It was a basic concept of both Greek philosophy 

 and physiology that the air (Greek 'pneuma,' Latin 

 'anima') was a universal, nonmaterial and immortal 

 life principle. Through the process of breathing, organ- 

 isms drew in this principle, elaborated upon it, and 

 became alive. In other words they became animated 

 matter, as is expressed by the Latin derived word 

 'animal.' Their sentient part was therefore basically 

 no more than the nonmaterial air that passed back 

 and forth in respiration. Hence psyche (i.e. breath, 

 spirit) became identified with the mental attributes 

 of man and animal. In later times this concept, with 

 certain modifications, found symbolic expression in the 

 Anglo-Saxon word 'soul.' 



Except for changed ideas about underlying mecha- 

 nisms, the present-day concept of the 'psyche' con- 

 tinues to be essentially the same as in Greek times. 

 One thinks of it as referring to the nonmaterial at- 

 tributes of the mind with all its conscious and un- 

 conscious processes. It is this sense of the word that 

 has made the combination of 'psyche' and 'soma' 

 scientifically objectionable. For to say 'psychosomatic' 

 is to imply that the nonmaterial mind can act on the 

 substance of the body. 



This objection can be circumvented by taking 

 advantage of the implications in modern definitions of 

 'psyche.' In the past 100 years the old Greek notion 

 that the 'psyche' is capable of an independent existence 

 has gradually died out, and the mind has come to be 

 looked upon as inseparable from a functioning organic 

 system. ( lonsequently, one can today pick up a stand- 

 ard dictionary and find the psyche defined as "the 

 mind, especially considered as an organic system 

 serving to adjust the total organism to the environ- 

 ment." The definition could have gone a step further 

 and slated that the central nervous .system is recog- 

 nized as being the essential component of the organic 

 s\ stem. 



Psyi he as Information 



A further formulation in regard to the psyche will 

 entail the use of the word information. Wiener (69) 

 has suggested that information be considered as order- 

 liness. Stated a little differently, it is the order that 

 emerges from .1 background of disorder. In an ex- 

 tension of this concept Wiener has pointed out that 

 information is information, not matter or eneruv The 



