Crisis events as a psychosomatic fact of human life
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29038/2227-1376-2026-47-virKeywords:
crisis events, psychosomatics, psychosomatic fact, reintegrative resilience, disintegration vulnerability, biopsychological homeostasis, pleasure/pain, primary/secondary suffering, somatic emotions, somatic memory, health/illness, psychoimmune system, salutogenic approachAbstract
Purpose. The purpose of the presented study is to provide a theoretical substantiation of crisis events as a psychosomatic fact of human life and to reveal their influence on the integral functioning of personality.
Methods. The defined theoretical and methodological direction of the analysis consists in the psychological reconstruction of the psychosomatic fact from the perspective of the crisis determination of life and in identifying the methodological coordinates of its functioning.
Results. The article presents a theoretical understanding of crisis events as a psychosomatic fact of human life. A historical review of the basic positions of psychosomatics constituted the basis for substantiating a crisis event not only as an external circumstance, but also as an integral experience manifested at the bodily, emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and meaning-of-life levels. A structural-functional model of the psychosomatic fact of human life in the context of crisis events has been developed. The proposed model reflects the understanding of the psychosomatic fact as an integral process of human life in which crisis events disturb biopsychological homeostasis and trigger the dynamics of disintegration or reintegration. Within this dynamic, the psychosomatic fact manifests itself through the interaction of primary and secondary suffering, natural and somatic emotions, somatic memory, as well as through the correlation between disintegration vulnerability and reintegrative resilience. This approach makes it possible to consider health and illness not as isolated states, but as poles of a unified psychosomatic process unfolding within the binomial of normality — between pleasure and pain, positive experience and suffering. A special integrative function in this system is performed by the immune system, which appears as a psychosomatic integrator. It is argued that, in this perspective, the psychosomatic fact emerges as a form of integral human functioning, and the importance of the practical application of the salutogenic approach is emphasized.
Conclusions. The presented methodological synthesis of the problem actualizes the search for new formats of studying the psychosomatic fact within the development of the salutogenic approach to understanding crisis as an experience that contains the potential for recovery, growth, and the search for new meaning.
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