METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE MIND-BODY P ROBLEM IN PSYCHOSOMATICS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY

Adequate research strategies in Psychosomatics and psychotherapy requi re a variety of different epistemological approaches. This paper empha sizes to replace the dichotomy between nomological explanation of phys ical processes versus intentional understanding of psychological pheno mena by a combination of the discrimination between psyche and soma an d the discrimination between causal explanation and intentional unders tanding. As a result there are four categories of research: scientific research in biological objects, nomological research in psychological phenomena, ideographic and qualitative research in psychological phen omena, and holistic-systemic research in biological phenomena. The rel ationship of research results from one of these paradigms to results f rom another paradigm will be discussed at the end of the article.