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The Section on Historical Medicine of the New York Academy of Medicine
invites you to hear
Theodore M. Brown, Ph.D.
Professor of History and Preventive Medicine
University of Rochester
speaking on
THE RISE AND FALL OF AMERICAN PSYCHOSOMATIC MEDICINE
Wednesday, November 29, 6:00 PM
(refreshments at 5:30)
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue (at 103rd Street)
New York City
[All are welcome, and there is no charge. CME credits are available for
physicians. We urge you to pre-register, although this is not required.
To pre-register, please email Tawana Wright at the New York Academy of
Medicine Education and Conference Center (twright@nyam.org).]
After a brief sketch of mind-body concerns throughout Western medical
history, the focus of this talk will shift to American medicine in the
early decades of the twentieth century. During the 1920s, while concern
grew within internal medicine for the "emotional zone of disease,"
psychiatrists and psychoanalysts became more interested in psychogenic and
psychodynamic etiologies. Eventually, as a result of deliberate efforts
to bridge disciplines by the Rockefeller Foundation and other
philanthropies, the new field of psychosomatics crystallized. Prof. Brown
will highlight the role of key personalities, institutions and
publications, and will direct the audience's attention to the influence of
World War II and the postwar enthusiasm for psychodynamic psychiatry in
popularizing psychosomatics, in both medicine and popular culture. He
will next consider emerging rifts and problems in the professional field
in the sixties, along with internal and external reasons for their
appearance. He will show how, during the seventies, the molecular
revolution in medicine and the rise of neuropsychiatry led to the eclipse
of psychosomatic medicine. He will conclude his talk by considering what
may be left of the once dominant field of psychosomatic medicine as
reflected in current interests in "psychoneuroimmunology," "stress"
research, and "somatization disorder."
For further information on this and other historical programs at the
Academy, please contact me at history@nyam.org
Ed Morman
Associate Librarian for Historical Collections and Programs
The New York Academy of Medicine
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