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FROM THE MIND INTO THE BODY
Examines the relationship between social identity and the varieties of psychosomatic illness, tracing the interplay of cultural and biological factors in psychosomatic distress and showing why some individuals are more predisposed than others to develop chronic illness.
278 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 31, 2012
This book is terrible. Don't read it. (Well, read it if you want to, but be aware it's terrible.)
Shorter argues that, while depression and other mental health conditions have a somatic effect on the body, these effects are culturally specific and change over time. They are also class and gender specific, with women (Shorter concentrates almost entirely on women) in the middle and upper classes having different “acceptable” symptoms of “psychosomatic” illnesses than lower class women. He argued that these illnesses are real, but only become epidemics as the sufferers receive the positive attention from doctors and their families that they’re seeking. Shorter uses this to illustrate his argument that conditions such as fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are not physical illnesses, but brought about by depression.
He also argues that conditions such as anorexia (he does not discuss bulimia) are not weight-loss based but instead another symptom of mental illness, and blames both a desire for attention and a feeling of being smothered by the family (very specifically them other). He also makes very clear that he thinks the susceptibility to certain types of psychosomatic illness runs in families and thus is genetic/biological, rather than based on how one is raised. ["What the sufferers conceive to be genuine organic disease often comes from illness models self-consciously suggested to them by the class to which they belong." But at the same time he makes arguments such as the idea that working class people were also subject to hysteria, but middle-class people were more likely to seek help for physical sensations as illness. There is no discussion about who is able to afford medical care, and what medical care is recorded in official journals.] At one point he acknowledges that there are very few symptoms that are actually class specific (in discussing “bed cases” he agreed that they “seeped considerably down the social scale”), but then goes back to discussing the symptoms as class-specific, rather than the doctor’s reactions to those symptoms.
He argues that anorexia is caused by depression and a desire to punish one’s family, usually one’s mother. He also discusses how anorexia patients didn’t express a fear of becoming fat until “between the wars” - you know, that time when the ideal body type was the 1920s flapper.
Shorter primarily uses medical reports and medical journals to make his case, arguing that these are very rich. However, he makes an argument that young women in even the most rural of areas has access to information about how illness and disease was being treated in the late 19th and early 20th century, to take on the fashionable presentation of these illnesses (so, fainting and headaches, for example, as a form of hysteria) without demonstrating that the press ever discussed cases like this prior to women in rural Manitoba presenting symptoms.
He does at one point admit that women are more likely to be diagnosed as having psychosomatic illnesses in cases where the same symptoms in men are diagnosed as being organic in origin, but never follows this up or really seems to interrogate what that *means*.
Shorter unfortunately seems to rely a great deal on gender essentialism (women are like thus, men are like so). He uses “women” in a way that indicates that he mostly means white middle-class European women, with only little acknowledgment. (He occasionally discusses how some illnesses don’t seem to appear in non-Western societies.) (He also argues that women have a harder life than men, because women.) Race is little discussed, except in a chapter about Eastern European Jewish people (whom he characterizes as particularly prone to psychosomatic illness as a result of the trauma of the Holocaust - but then uses a variety of examples that pre-date it, and doesn't discuss any other racial group that might have a history of trauma, such as victims of the trans-Atlantic slave trade or the Irish Famine). While he acknowledges that some men experience psychosomatic symptoms, his book rarely discusses them, and certain does not dedicate an entire chapter.
He defines psychosomatic illness as "the perception of physical symptoms for which the patient seeks medical help and for which there is no organic cause."
Shorter argues that certain illnesses are more likely to strike people of certain age groups because they were fashionable in their youth. (Shorter’s explanation for older women becoming anorexic, for example, would be that anorexia was of particular concern when they were teenagers and imprinting on the idea of what anorexia was and its causes.)
He also argues that specific psychosomatic illnesses have changed their symptoms because of fears of “degeneration” brought about by the 19th’s attitudes towards eugenics.
While at one point he does he seem to entertain the notion that doctors just disliked certain types of patients and didn’t want to treat them, he again moves on from this without really interrogating how that would influence his theories about illness.
He occasionally acknowledges outright that doctors were pushing unnecessary surgeries as clients, many of which were fatal, but his disdain is primarily directed at the women who are suffering. The doctors get very little attention that isn't sympathy for dealing with these patients. The families are equally sympathetic.
So, Shorter's main argument is that "Ethnicity gives cultural meaning to one’s perception of one’s body." This is not something I disagree with, but I have been reading a great deal of medical history as of late. The case is made much more effectively in other works, ones that don't spend the entire book basically arguing "women, amirite?"
Shorter argues that, while depression and other mental health conditions have a somatic effect on the body, these effects are culturally specific and change over time. They are also class and gender specific, with women (Shorter concentrates almost entirely on women) in the middle and upper classes having different “acceptable” symptoms of “psychosomatic” illnesses than lower class women. He argued that these illnesses are real, but only become epidemics as the sufferers receive the positive attention from doctors and their families that they’re seeking. Shorter uses this to illustrate his argument that conditions such as fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are not physical illnesses, but brought about by depression.
He also argues that conditions such as anorexia (he does not discuss bulimia) are not weight-loss based but instead another symptom of mental illness, and blames both a desire for attention and a feeling of being smothered by the family (very specifically them other). He also makes very clear that he thinks the susceptibility to certain types of psychosomatic illness runs in families and thus is genetic/biological, rather than based on how one is raised. ["What the sufferers conceive to be genuine organic disease often comes from illness models self-consciously suggested to them by the class to which they belong." But at the same time he makes arguments such as the idea that working class people were also subject to hysteria, but middle-class people were more likely to seek help for physical sensations as illness. There is no discussion about who is able to afford medical care, and what medical care is recorded in official journals.] At one point he acknowledges that there are very few symptoms that are actually class specific (in discussing “bed cases” he agreed that they “seeped considerably down the social scale”), but then goes back to discussing the symptoms as class-specific, rather than the doctor’s reactions to those symptoms.
He argues that anorexia is caused by depression and a desire to punish one’s family, usually one’s mother. He also discusses how anorexia patients didn’t express a fear of becoming fat until “between the wars” - you know, that time when the ideal body type was the 1920s flapper.
Shorter primarily uses medical reports and medical journals to make his case, arguing that these are very rich. However, he makes an argument that young women in even the most rural of areas has access to information about how illness and disease was being treated in the late 19th and early 20th century, to take on the fashionable presentation of these illnesses (so, fainting and headaches, for example, as a form of hysteria) without demonstrating that the press ever discussed cases like this prior to women in rural Manitoba presenting symptoms.
He does at one point admit that women are more likely to be diagnosed as having psychosomatic illnesses in cases where the same symptoms in men are diagnosed as being organic in origin, but never follows this up or really seems to interrogate what that *means*.
Shorter unfortunately seems to rely a great deal on gender essentialism (women are like thus, men are like so). He uses “women” in a way that indicates that he mostly means white middle-class European women, with only little acknowledgment. (He occasionally discusses how some illnesses don’t seem to appear in non-Western societies.) (He also argues that women have a harder life than men, because women.) Race is little discussed, except in a chapter about Eastern European Jewish people (whom he characterizes as particularly prone to psychosomatic illness as a result of the trauma of the Holocaust - but then uses a variety of examples that pre-date it, and doesn't discuss any other racial group that might have a history of trauma, such as victims of the trans-Atlantic slave trade or the Irish Famine). While he acknowledges that some men experience psychosomatic symptoms, his book rarely discusses them, and certain does not dedicate an entire chapter.
He defines psychosomatic illness as "the perception of physical symptoms for which the patient seeks medical help and for which there is no organic cause."
Shorter argues that certain illnesses are more likely to strike people of certain age groups because they were fashionable in their youth. (Shorter’s explanation for older women becoming anorexic, for example, would be that anorexia was of particular concern when they were teenagers and imprinting on the idea of what anorexia was and its causes.)
He also argues that specific psychosomatic illnesses have changed their symptoms because of fears of “degeneration” brought about by the 19th’s attitudes towards eugenics.
While at one point he does he seem to entertain the notion that doctors just disliked certain types of patients and didn’t want to treat them, he again moves on from this without really interrogating how that would influence his theories about illness.
He occasionally acknowledges outright that doctors were pushing unnecessary surgeries as clients, many of which were fatal, but his disdain is primarily directed at the women who are suffering. The doctors get very little attention that isn't sympathy for dealing with these patients. The families are equally sympathetic.
So, Shorter's main argument is that "Ethnicity gives cultural meaning to one’s perception of one’s body." This is not something I disagree with, but I have been reading a great deal of medical history as of late. The case is made much more effectively in other works, ones that don't spend the entire book basically arguing "women, amirite?"
August 16, 2026
Interesting although very dated by now. I appreciated his historical case studies, although at time I had to hunt for his main points, which are essentially how culture (SES, age, generational cohort, ethnicity) also play an important role in the manifestations of mental illness-- and this is something we can very well see today with the trends playing out due to social media. He never dismisses the underlying distress, just notes that it might look different due to social influences.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews