"In Christchurch, Dr Brian Broom is concerned at a very personal level with the question of why people get ill. Broom trained as a doctor, then gave up a career in the Christchurch School of Medicine to retrain in psychiatry. He had become frustrated at the way clinical medicine compartmentalised mind and body. The author of the recent book Meaning-Full Disease, he sees psychosocial effects at work every day in his work as a doctor specialising in allergies and as a psychotherapist. Broom finds that many of his patients' physical complaints are related to their "story" -the emotional upsets and traumas they've experienced. As a doctor and psychoanalyst he is able to take an integrated approach to his patients' illnesses. "If you look at the biomedical factors and the emotional factors you get a much better [healing] response." As an example, Broom cites the condition of urticaria and Babc angioedema (weals and swellings). "In the 19th century ecc physicians used to call it 'angio-neurotic edema', but in the 20th century the division between physical illness and mental illness became cemented and they removed 'neurotic'. As a result angioedema has been very difficult to treat because allergists contend that urticaria is not a psychosomatic illness but a physical illness; but most [cases] don't have a discernible allergy sitting behind them." READ MORE...
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