A wealth of new findings in the fields of neurobiology and molecular biology, epigenetics and developmental psychology in the field of stress research have led to a far-reaching paradigm shift in psychosomatic medicine during the last 10 years. Traditional theoretical models of various schools of psychotherapy on the development and treatment of numerous diseases with physical cardinal symptoms have consequently lost their significance. The present work begins with 21 chapters providing a current stocktaking of the scientifically proven biopsychosocial foundations of this new psychosomatics, and then in a further 68 chapters it presents the various implications for the diagnosis and treatment of numerous diseases in the different medical disciplines, based on the findings of basic research. These are supplemented by articles on social medicine, assessment and prevention.
