Schweiz Rundsch Med Prax. 1989 Dec; 78(52): 1454-60.

[Holistic medicine--away from the separation of mind and body]

Battegay R.

The purpose of liaison-psychiatry is to sensitize the colleagues for the aspect of the patient as a whole. The German expression 'wie er leibt und lebt' (as he exists in and with his body, and lives) is expressing this holistic view and says that the human being is living and experiencing himself in his corporal being and subjectivity. The body simultaneously is a somatic process and experience. If the physician wants to understand the human being, consulting him as an undivided entity, he has to be able to grasp the organ language as posture, as expression of the patient's subjectivity and of his self-esteem. He has to consider that the 'organ choice' shows, besides hereditary, culture and individual factors, the role which an organ plays within a family and an individual. The organ language can also be a significant expression of a basic drive problem. In the encounter with the patient it is further important to notice that he often is only the 'presented symptom' of the family. The vulnerability of a human being, genetically and life-historically caused, is different according to age. The cultural background out of which a human being originates decides on a more somatic or a more verbal mode of expression, whereby in our cultural background prejudices are existing against the emotional expression in the body language. In therapy, unconditional understanding may be expected of the physician.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)