Book Description

'The Cartesian split of human creatures into "psyche" and "soma" has had a profoundly bad influence on the medical care of children.' In fact the concept of psychosomatic disease as a separate entirely false one, there being on illness that does not in some way affect behaviour, and no behaviour which is not in some way mediated by physiological factors. However, the subtleties of our understanding of child illness have gone much further than simply unmasking this false dichotomy. This book will now unveil the parts played by other features of the broader environment - the family, stress, socioeconomic factors - and other predicaments, including that of loving and being loved. To understand the child within these wider terms, the professionals involved in helping the child and the parents must in some way be given a new perspective, a broader view. One Child provides this perspective, stepping outside conventional presentations into the more exciting possibilities of reassessing the influences and rôles of the disease itself and the environment in which it arises. This represents challenge and will inevitably cause controversy, which should itself push the perspectives further.