Soma and psyche: An indissociable unity

Before the Corpus Hypocratum, the term soma referred to an inanimate body or corpse. “Psyche” originally signified breath and, by extension, the breath of life and then soul. It is worth recalling that these semantic shifts occurred at a time when Hippocrates was founding medicine as a scientific discipline based on objective observation and the study of symptoms (semiology). Depending on whether or not psyche-soma is seen as singular or dual, one may construct different systems explaining man and the world, life and death. The discoveries of psychoanalysis offers a perfectly cogent and unique solution to the famous mind/body problem. In transferring the duality psyche-soma/onto the duality of drives, psychoanalysis places the origin of the thought process in the body.