[Coping with disease from the psychosomatic-psychotherapeutic viewpoint exemplified by pancreatectomized patients]

In the past few years psychosomatic medicine, apart from investigating the psychosocial sources of bodily disorders, has begun to focus also on the opposite side of the problem, the question of how people experience illness and cope with it. This "somatopsychic" view can be regarded as a supplement to the so far prevailing psychosomatic perspective and its approach. The present study describes and analyzes various strategies of coping with illness as observed in a group of pancreatectomized patients, a group of patients which has not been investigated before in this field of research. Based upon the experience of long-term psychotherapeutic care, the study differentiates between the more problematic and the more beneficial forms of coping, and empirically verifies their prevalence and adaptivity in a sample of pancreatectomized patients, not selected with regard to the extent of care needed. The findings are discussed from the methodological and the psychosomatic-psychotherapeutic point of view.