Wissenschaftliche Methoden in der Psychosomatik

A review of current research methods in psychosomatic medicine is given. In this field of medicine, psychological as well as physiological and social levels of description are relevant; they derive from the natural sciences as well as from the humanities. Therefore, methods in practical research have to be grounded in a theoretical model that takes into account the following points: reductionist vs. non-reductionist relation of the levels of description, relation of quantitative and qualitative methods, intrapsychic vs. interpersonal fixation of subjective meanings, relevance of modern physiological methods.