Shakespeare was a master at portraying profound emotional upset
in the physical symptoms of his characters, and many modern day
doctors would do well to study the Bard to better understand the
mind-body connection, a researcher says. Kenneth Heaton, a
medical doctor and extensively published author on William
Shakespeare's oeuvre, systematically analysed 42 of the author's
major works and 46 of those of his contemporaries, looking for
evidence of psychosomatic symptoms. He focused on sensory
symptoms other than those relating to sight, taste, the heart,
and the gut and found that Shakespeare's portrayal of symptoms
such as dizziness and blunted or heightened sensitivity to touch
and pain in characters expressing profound emotions was
significantly more common than in works by other authors of the
time. "Many doctors are reluctant to attribute physical symptoms
to emotional disturbance, and this results in delayed diagnosis,
overinvestigation, and inappropriate treatment," Heaton said.
"They could learn to be