Franz Alexander

We now feel we can cure the patient without his fully understanding what made him sick.

Summary

Franz Alexander (1891 - 1964) was a psychoanalytic pioneer. His productivity ranged creatively over fields as diverse as psychosomatic medicine, sociology, philosophy, criminology, and the visual arts.

He was sometimes referred to as the father of Psychosomatic Medicine because of his leading role in identifying emotional tension as a significant cause of physical illness.

His ideas influenced the concept of the Unity of Health/Emotion (see Vital Unconscious and Biocentric Principle).

Ideas

• Alexander drews a distinction between classical mental illnesses and disorders of organ function related to disturbances of the autonomic nervous system,
• Psychosomatic medicine proposes that psychic stimuli can trigger a chain of physiological responses that can affect bodily function and somatic disease.