From Paralysis to Fatigue : A History of Psychosomatic Illness in the Modern Era

The first book to put the physical symptoms of stress in their historical and cultural context. This fascinating history of psychosomatic disorders shows how patients throughout the centuries have produced symptoms in tandem with the cultural shifts of the larger society. Newly popularized diseases such as "chronic fatigue syndrome" and "total allergy syndrome" are only the most recent examples of patients complaining of ailments that express the truths about the culture in which they live. Argues that the symptoms of psychosomatic illness that patients have produced throughout the centuries are shaped by the cultural shifts of larger society, and that diseases such as "chronic fatigue syndrome" are ailments that express the deepest truths about the culture in which we live. Shorter shows how psychosomatic symptoms are related to cultural conditions. In the repressive Victorian period, such symptoms were generally hysteria and paralysis. In the permissive society, they took the form of enervation and languor. The descent from mind to body is a tricky one.