The recent explosion of knowledge in the fields of neurobiology, psychology and genetics has made it no longer helpful to discuss whether or not a particular illness is psychosomatic. It is much more helpful to use the term psychosomatic attitude to refer to an approach that pays attention to possible interactions of psychological, social and biological factors in all patients, whatever symptom or disorder they may be suffering. Recent research has demonstrated that contrasting the irrationality of emotions to the rationality of reasoning and decision making is no longer tenable. Emotions are...