Abstract

“Iatrophilosophy” is defined as the translational discipline between medicine and philosophy that has a double objective, theoretical and practical. It is presented a model of practical iatrophilosophy applied to chronic pain associated with depression and stress—depresalgia—, that expands Phenomenologic, Hermeneutic, Dynamic Psychotherapy (PHD) to the general medical field. It starts from the general model of the medical triad - disease, illness, and sickness- and, in the horizon of Ortega's anthropology, five nuclear metaphors are proposed: greed of the body, anguish of circumstance, personal tear, personal knots, and personal expropriation. These are related to the neurobiological mechanisms of central sensitization, allostasis, and alteration of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. A personal recovery process based on therapeutic concord is proposed. The analysis of chronic pain and other complex health problems can benefit from philosophical methodologies such as clinical hermeneutics.