somatising city

At work today, everyone seemed to have issues of "somatisation". What used to be more commonly referred to as "psychosomatic disorders" these have been understood for a long time, certainly since Freud. Indeed, I would not be surprised if even even ancient physicians also had a handle on it. I have often wondered how physicians of the past inspired so much confidence, in view of their extremely rudimentary diagnostic techniques and even fewer weapons of effective treatment. But people have always feared death, and therefore revered the person who might deliver them from it. Even today a major part of the doctor's job is to reassure people that their symptoms are not life threatening, and perhaps physicians in antiquity were also skilled in recognising self limiting ailments and were thereby able to ease their patient's minds.

Certainly that seemed to be all I was engaged in from 9 through 12: hyperacidity, irritable bowel syndrome, asthma, and perhaps most interestingly, a 6 year old child with school phobia manifesting as "headache and not feeling very well"