The science behind psychosomatic medicine is often extremely poor, using bad definitions and wrong tests. The field is driven by highly dogmatic people with uncomfortably close ties to the insurance industry (if it's psychological, there's somehow no need to pay social security)
Most conditions classified as "(potentially) psychosomatic", such as fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and ME/CFS have plenty of evidence of a biomedical origin that the psychosomatic crowd conveniently ignores.
The consequence of labeling diseases as psychosomatic are lack of treatment, harmful treatment, lack of research funding, and lack of social security. You might want to be a little more careful throwing that term around.
I really don't understand the tolerance for this pseudoscience in rationalist circles.
The science behind psychosomatic medicine is often extremely poor, using bad definitions and wrong tests. The field is driven by highly dogmatic people with uncomfortably close ties to the insurance industry (if it's psychological, there's somehow no need to pay social security)
Here's a good blog on the topic:
https://mecfsskeptic.com/history-of-psychosomatic-medicine/
Most conditions classified as "(potentially) psychosomatic", such as fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and ME/CFS have plenty of evidence of a biomedical origin that the psychosomatic crowd conveniently ignores.
The consequence of labeling diseases as psychosomatic are lack of treatment, harmful treatment, lack of research funding, and lack of social security. You might want to be a little more careful throwing that term around.
I really don't understand the tolerance for this pseudoscience in rationalist circles.