Abstract
This article aims to illustrate an archaic way of thinking, where the constructed word "psychosomatic" was not needed because there was no division of human being into "soul" and "body". Old Norse literature contains various layers and some of those reflect pre-Christian thinking where concepts for incorporeal soul and soulless body did not exist.
Emotions were perceived as bodily sensations, and examples taken from sagas can well show their strong physical manifestations: e.g. in case of a close person's death or a moral dilemma, death was quite a common reaction, as well as impossibility of any revenge could cause one's paralysis. There are also mentioned some cases of psychotherapy that can be found in the Old Norse literature, e.g. treatment of melancholy and of furious ecstasy of berserks, which can be classified as lycanthropic from the medical point of view.
This culture that perceives human being in terms of other dualities than the soul-body one may perhaps be inspiring in overcoming the problems created by their separation.