Addiction Research

Addiction Research

Open Access
ISSN: 2639-8451
Review Article

Beyond the Cartesian Split: The Dreambody Approach to Chronic Pain and Healing

Authors: Julian Ungar-Sargon.

DOI: 10.33425/2639-8451.1050


Abstract

This paper explores the application of Arnold Mindell's dreambody concept to chronic pain management, proposing a paradigm shift away from the Cartesian dualism that has dominated Western medicine. By synthesizing Jungian psychology with somatic experience, the dreambody approach offers a framework that transcends the traditional psyche-soma split. This paper examines how the dreambody concept creates a "container of safety" in which both healer and patient can engage with suffering as a meaningful aspect of existence rather than merely a problem to be solved. Drawing on clinical experience and theoretical perspectives from depth psychology, I argue that chronic pain treatment requires abandoning the military metaphors of "fighting" disease and instead embracing a model where symptoms are understood as expressions of the whole personality. This approach does not promise cure in conventional terms but offers a path to meaning-making and deeper engagement with the totality of human experience, including decline, degeneration, and mortality. The paper concludes with practical implications for creating clinical environments that facilitate dreambody work and a call for research methodologies appropriate to this paradigm.

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Citation: Julian Ungar-Sargon. Beyond the Cartesian Split: The Dreambody Approach to Chronic Pain and Healing. 2025; 9(2). DOI: 10.33425/2639-8451.1050
Editor-in-Chief
Yury Evgeny Razvodovsky
Yury Evgeny Razvodovsky
Department of Psychiatry | Grodno State Medical University

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