Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Psychosomatic
/ˌsaɪkoʊsəˈmætɪk/adjective
Describing a physical symptom produced or worsened by mental and emotional states.
The Greek roots
ψυχή
psychḗ
breath, soul, mind
σῶμα
sôma
body
Literally: “mind and body”
The story of the word
Two Greek nouns, mind and body, set side by side in 19th-century medical writing to mean of both at once. The narrower modern sense belongs to the psychosomatic medicine movement of the 1930s, which looked for the mental causes of ulcers, asthma and hypertension. Patients hear the word as an accusation of faking, which reverses what it claims: the symptom is real, the cause is upstream.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
psychepsychiatrysomaticchromosome
In a sentence
Calling the pain psychosomatic did not make it hurt any less.
He kept a diary for a month and the psychosomatic pattern was hard to argue with.