title: The cybernetics of physical illness.
abstract: This is a speculative essay on the application of cybernetic concepts to the diagnosis and treatment of physical illness. The essay assumes that there is a unified biopsychosocial field in which the designation of illness as "physical" violates the ecological wholeness of the field. Although the field is complex, clinical intervention requires a degree of simplicity. This simplicity is sought by describing biopsychosocial experience in terms of recursive cycles. Clinical intervention is discussed as a disruption of recursive cycles.
mesh_terms: D003491:Cybernetics; D003933:Diagnosis; D004194:Disease / Q000523:psychology; D004777:Environment; D005190:Family; D005246:Feedback; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D013812:Therapeutics