Accessible online at: www.karger.com/journals/pps Dr. Yujiro Ikemi, Professor Emeritus of Kyushu University, died on June 25, 1999, at age 84. With great sorrow, I write about my teacher, the late Dr. Ikemi, one of the world’s leading psychosomatists who developed new concepts, made new discoveries and gave new meaning to the expanding field of psychosomatic medicine. His contribution towards i...

BACKGROUND Within national and international societies of psychosomatic medicine the idea has emerged of bringing together and coordinating psychosomatic, behavioural, psychological and medical actions with common interests throughout Europe as a way to increase their scientific and political influence. METHODS It was felt that there was a strong need and opportunity of a common and unifying ...

Carolina Seybert (International Psychoanalytic University, Berlin) Dorothea Huber (International Psychoanalytic University, Berlin; Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Clinical Center, München) Melanie Ratzek (International Psychoanalytic University, Berlin) Johannes Zimmermann (Institute for Psychology, University of Kassel) Günther Klug (Clinic and Polyclinic for Psychosom...

The Japanese Society of Psychosomatic Medicine was founded in 1959, and its first congress was held in 1960, with fewer than 100 members. The society has grown tremendously since then, both in terms of scope and size. In 2012, we had 3,600 members. We have hosted the World Congress of Psychosomatic Medicine two times, first in 1977 in Kyoto, then in 2005 in Kobe, where we were very honored by t...

OBJECTIVE This article presents major concepts and research findings from the field of psychosomatic medicine that the authors believe should be taught to all medical students. METHOD The authors asked senior scholars involved in psychosomatic medicine to summarize key findings in their respective fields. RESULTS The authors provide an overview of the field and summarize core research in ba...

From the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Division of Internal Medicine, University Hospital Basel, Basel Switzerland (P.G., G.D); Institute of Transcultural Health Studies, European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany (H.W., S.S.); Brain, Mind and Healing Program, Samueli Institute, Alexandria, VA, United States (H.W., S.S.); Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Universi...

The history of psychosomatic medicine (1) abounds with different conceptual approaches to the understanding of health, illness, and disease and to the care of the sick, alternative to those taken by biomedicine (e.g., refs. 2-5). The psychosomatic perspective on the universe of Medicine has gone by many different names (e.g., biopsychosocial, holistic, human, integrative, patient-oriented, psyc...

During the second half of the last century, biopsychosocial research in psychosomatic medicine largely ignored the brain. Neuroscience has started to make a comeback in psychosomatic medicine research and promises to advance the field in important ways. In this paper we briefly review select brain imaging research findings in psychosomatic medicine in four key areas: cardiovascular regulation, ...