Comments on psychosomatic family concept. Reviews decline of psychosomatic models of illness that assume that arousal is the only or primary means by which psychosocial factors influence illness. Focuses on brittle diabetes, noting the potential for family theorists to develop more adequate models of poor self-care and medical crises as…

Responds to the critical evaluation of Coyne and Anderson in the previous article, of "Psychosomatic Families: Anorexia Nervosa in Context" (Minuchin, Rosman, and Baker). Asserts that indeed certain very specifically defined diabetic patients' physiological disturbance serves a function in their families, an assertion strongly supported by…

Disputes that original data of Minuchin, Rosman and Baker (1978) support their assertions that some diabetic patients' physiological disturbance serves a function in their families. Concludes that their psychosomatic family model decontextualizes families, assigning to them characteristics more appropriately seen as reflections of the disease…