Psychosomatic Symptoms - Mechanical Thinking

The Thinker, Auguste Rodin

In the 1940s and 1950s new interest arose in the field of psychosomatics. In USA the main representatives were Helen Dunbar and Franz Alexander whereas in Europe was P. Marty. Marty was a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and psychosomatician and he was at the heart of the French psychoanalytic movement when he formed the Paris School in 1963.Marty discovered that his psychosomatic patients had an overly rational and pragmatic way of thinking that he named “mechanical thinking”.

These patients lacked in their ability to fantasize, symbolize and bring their emotions into words. They also seemed to have a flattened affect and an impression of detachment from external relationships. They could not exhibit variety and richness of emotions and couldn’t elaborate on their feelings. The inability to fantasize and symbolize resulted in internal disorganization. The somatic symptom was an effort of the body to stop this internal disorganization and at the same time its expression on a somatic level. Marty’s theory was put into practice at the Poterne des Peupliers Hospital, a world recognized institution, where the Paris school applied their ideas for therapy, research and training.

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