Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno and Max Horkheimer formulated the Dialectic of Enlightenment in the 1940s. A body-historical scandal of the Enlightenment was the separation of body and mind, from which modern and postmodern societies suffer to the present day. Again and again, there have been attempts to re-enchant the relationship between body and mind and counteract the world's disenchantment. Our panel examines three distinct episodes in the post-war years during which the tension between body and mind is explored. At times expressed in Neo-Freudian terms, mind-body relationships were re-inscribed in theory and practice. The papers examine overlapping disciplines (Zen Buddhism in psychoanalysis, Ayurvedic medicine, psychotherapy, and neurosurgery) and three perspectives on human cognition: temporal (before homo sapiens), biological (below human rationality), and societal (beyond Western thinking). These disciplines and perspectives are also tangential to different problem areas of medicine in the second half of the 20th century. The first paper looks at the body in Zen-meditation as a gateway to the mind in psychoanalysis, the second paper examines the influence of historical narratives in neurology on psychotherapeutic practice, the third paper analyzes neurosurgeons' attempts to re-define consciousness in the clinic, and the fourth discusses psychosomatic medicine in postcolonial Ayurveda in India. In conclusion, we discuss how the wide variety of clinical practices from the post-war era evolved and how it resonated with different understandings about the relationship of mind and body.

The panel's overarching themes, firstly, show how debates about mind-body medicine were characterized by their ‘Eastern’ inspirations and orientalist gaze, thus the panel proposes an original view on the history of orientalism and postcolonialism. Related to this, we point out that, secondly, there was an attempt within medicine to integrate traditional practices from Japan and India into clinical-medical practice. On the other hand, and thirdly, standardization and new clinical instrumentation tied surgeons and other biomedical practitioners closer to the paradigm of biological reductionism and detached them from spiritualistic and holistic approaches to body and mind.

By shedding light on the above-mentioned disciplines and perspectives within the complex field of mind-body medicine, we hope to discuss strands such as: The dynamic interrelationship between science and spiritual traditions in society in a postcolonial context, psychiatric practice guided by a historically informed concept of mind-body therapies, and how to develop the capacity of critical thinking about the consequences of mind-body therapies. Moreover, the panel aims to unwrap how current modes of self-reference and self-understanding originated in post-war thinking about body and mind.