What is the nature of psychosomatic illness ? Long before Descartes said that the mind and body were separate , there existed in Western medicine a philosophical dichotomy between mind and body , while Eastern tradition had the
wisdom to view the mind and body as coming from the same energy or source . This disconnect has directed how Western medicine evolved , and has had a powerfully negative effect on how patients are perceived and treated , based on the assumption that there is mental pain and there is physical pain and never the twain shall meet .
“ These two types of pain , so the myth goes , are as different as land and sea . You feel physical pain if your arm breaks , and you feel mental pain if your heart breaks . Between these two different events we seem to imagine a gulf so wide and deep that it might as well be filled by a sea that is impossible to navigate ” ( Morris 1991 , p . 9 ).