Psychosomatics: Why It Happens — The Method’s View Through Homeostasis and Irritants

To understand psychosomatics, the method suggests not hunting for one "magic" cause, but unpacking the mechanism step by step: what homeostasis is, what an irritant is, and how stress turns into physical disorders. This is not a diagnosis or a pill-answer, but a way to see which direction to look.

Homeostasis — the basis of balance

In nature all systems strive to return to equilibrium. A person's blood sugar swings one way and the other, but comes back; the pH of seawater and blood markers also constantly move toward balance. As long as a system holds balance, it keeps living. If equilibrium drifts away and is not restored, the system breaks down.

Four levels where balance collapses

When we look at the human being and psychosomatics, we usually separate levels. The cell level: a cell is not just a "little circle," but a whole living bio-factory that "eats, washes, excretes" — we have billions of them. The tissue level: cuts, injuries, and normally tissue restores itself. The organ level: heart, liver, lungs, brain. And the level of the whole person — when markers cannot restore properly, disorders begin.

The irritant — what knocks us off balance

An irritant is any physical or chemical force acting on a cell, tissue, organ, or person and disrupting homeostasis. The sources are biological (internal processes, genetically determined, toxic) and environmental (pollution, poisons, work, psychic factors). They are constantly mixed together.

Chicken or egg: the triple approach

People always argue what comes first — biology, environment or psyche. But these arguments lead nowhere: the truth is always somewhere in the middle, the factors interact. In each individual case and each period of life one factor takes the upper hand — and then the symptom, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment change. It's like looking at an elephant: from the foot or from the head, but in principle everything is interconnected.

How stress becomes the body

All these disorders are neurophysiology and endocrinology. Irritants make the body react: the neuroendocrine system switches on, hormones and substances prepare the body for reactions. And how these reactions unfold shapes the prognosis. So psychosomatic symptoms — heartburn, belching, vomiting — are better understood through this mechanism than through fanciful "single true causes," on which some even build whole careers.

Practice

1. Describe the physical symptom precisely: what, where, when it appears.
2. Ask yourself: at which level is this seen — cell/tissue/organ/whole person.
3. Sort through irritants: biological (toxic, internal) and environmental (work, psychic factors) — what is pressing now.
4. Don't chase one "true cause"; note which factor currently seems to take the upper hand.
5. Compare what you found with your information source — this helps you see whether it's "for real or not."