The Cybernetics of Physical Illness

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.