Recent Developments in Psychosomatic Medicine

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Abstract
A review of the major developments and trends in psychosomatic medicine during the last 5 years is presented. A similar review covering the preceding 2 decades is briefly summarized and used as a frame of reference for the analysis. This survey ia largely confined to papers published in Psychosomatic Medicine. It is found that psychiatrists continue to contribute most of the relevant research, but there is increasing participation by psychologists and other scientists. One notes a shift from clinical observation to laboratory research and from retrospective psychodynamic reconstructions to phenomenological description of behavior in more or less clearly defined experimental situations. Methodology has focused on experimental replication of psychological stress by a variety of means and the study of various physiological variables as presumed indicators of such stress. There has been a notable decline of theoretical speculation regarding psychological antecedents of somatic change and disease. Predictive studies of psychosomatic relationships have been undertaken in several areas. There is a new interest in the frequency, nature, and possible sociocultural determinants of psychosomatic disorders in non-Western societies. In general, psychosomatic medicine has continued to flourish as a science rather than as a clinical discipline. Sweeping generalizations regarding the nature and influence of psychological variables in the causation of bodily disease which characterized the earlier phase of psychosomatic medicine have largely been replaced by sober research design and low-level hypotheses. The assets and dangers of this shift are discussed, future trends in research interest are predicted, and promising areas of exploration suggested.