The Psychosomatic Therapy Casebook

‘Jean Benjamin Stora was President of the Paris Psychosomatic School in the 1990s. Subsequently, his work at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital led him to develop a new discipline, integrative psychosomatics. It was based on a scientific model called “metapsychosomatics”, which supports the tension of knowledge between three disciplines: biomedicine, neuroscience and metapsychology. Following on from his previous works, this book explains the model and its paradigm in which the individual is perceived and investigated as a whole, in other words, as a “psychosomatic unit”. Through fifteen clinical cases, Stora exposes the clinical and therapeutic orientations at play. This is an important book for doctors, clinicians, and psychological practitioners. It carries an obvious yet often overlooked message: that the care of patients should not focus solely on the sick organ or biological system as separate from mind and spirit, but should also focus on taking care of the person behind the illness.’

‘There are five themes in the book, each illustrated with vignettes. Together, you get a clear picture of what, I would say, is the third generation of psychosomatics. […] I have read this book with pleasure. The chosen cases well illustrate the breadth of Stora’s approach. His practical advice and the appendices are down to earth and I think usable. Solms’s recommendations for the first two books are also applicable to this book: a worthwhile read.’

Jean Benjamin Stora is the Honorary Dean of the Faculty of the School of Higher Commercial Studies of Paris (HEC) and a practising psychoanalyst and psychosomatist. His professional practice began in 1973 and his teaching in 1960. He chaired the Institute of Psychosomatics “Pierre Marty” from 1989 to 1992 and the French Society of Psychosomatic Medicine from 2000 to 2002. He created and ran the consultation of psychosomatics from 1993 to 2015 at the Hospital La Pitié-Salpêtrière, and the Diploma of Integrative Psychosomatics, Psychoanalysis, Medicine and Neurosciences at the Faculty of Medicine of La Pitié-Salpêtrière, UPMC Paris 6 from 2006 to 2015. He is the current Director of the Institute of Integrative Psychosomatics of the Society of Integrative Psychosomatics.