Idioms of Distress: Psychosomatic Disorders in Medical and Imaginative Literature : psychosomatic disorders in medical and imaginative literature

With a title drawn from the 4th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association , Furst (comparative literature, U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) stresses psychosomatic illnesses' metaphoric aspect rather than their symptoms. She studies paradigm swings in viewing bodily expressions of distress somatically