Abstract
Abstract In recent decades, pain has received extensive attention from historians. However, the boundary work between organic and psychogenic pain has been less studied. To address the mind–body problem in the history of pain, this article examines how Finnish physicians in the latter half of the twentieth century have applied the psychosomatic framework to three painful conditions: rheumatoid arthritis, chronic backache and fibromyalgia. Through the interrelated case studies, it is argued that the medical discussion on musculoskeletal pain reflected social and economic interests and values that evolved in the course of the twentieth century. The psychogenic illness explanation compelled physicians to step outside the confines of biomedical rationale. Therefore, the descriptions of the ‘mind’ behind the ‘body’ render conspicuous for historians the values, moral norms and social expectations that underlie biomedicine.
Highlights
To address the mind–body problem in the history of pain, this article examines how Finnish physicians in the latter half of the twentieth century have applied the psychosomatic framework to three painful conditions: rheumatoid arthritis, chronic backache and fibromyalgia
Through the interrelated case studies, it is argued that the medical discussion on musculoskeletal pain reflected social and economic interests and values that evolved in the course of the twentieth century
The instances in which the extensive literature on pain converses with the history of psychosomatics are surprisingly rare.[4]. To address this understudied area, this article examines how Finnish physicians in the latter half of the twentieth century have applied the psychosomatic framework to three interrelated painful conditions: rheumatoid arthritis, chronic backache and fibromyalgia
Summary
To address the mind–body problem in the history of pain, this article examines how Finnish physicians in the latter half of the twentieth century have applied the psychosomatic framework to three painful conditions: rheumatoid arthritis, chronic backache and fibromyalgia.
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