 Psychoanalyst Franz Alexander had a deep interest in understanding the dynamic interrelation between mind and body.Sigmund Freud pursued a deep interest in psychosomatic illnesses following his correspondence with Georg Groddeck who was, at the time, researching the possibility of treating physical disorders through psychological processes.In the 1970s, Thure von Uexküll and his colleagues in Germany and elsewhere proposed a biosemiotic theory (the umwelt concept) that was widely influential as a theoretical framework for conceptualizing mind-body relations.