Interview: Is there a psychoanalyst in the house?

After the second world war, US and British scientists conducted serious research into the links between mind and body in disease. Psychosomatic medicine was even taught in medical schools. But by the 1970s the textbooks were gathering dust, and most doctors in the English-speaking world are ignorant of the vast literature on this topic. Could this explain why, in half of all cases seen by family doctors, the symptoms cannot be explained purely physically? Psychoanalyst Darian Leader and philosopher of science David Corfield think so. They told Laura Spinney why doctors could treat people more effectively if they opened…