International Journal for Multidisciplinary Research (IJFMR) E-ISSN: 2582-2160 ● Website: www.ijfmr.com ● Email: editor@ijfmr.com IJFMR23056248 Volume 5, Issue 5, September-October 2023 1 Psychosomatic Illness, Method of Treatment and Quality of Life: An Interactional Analysis Balanand Sinha 1 , Rajesh Kumar Tiwari 2 , Arun Kumar Singh 3 , Ranjeet Kumar 4 1 Retired Professor of Psychology, T.M. Bhagalpur University, Bhagalpur, Bihar, India. 2 Assistant Professor and Head of the Department of Psychology, T.N.B. College, Bhagalpur, Bihar India. 3 Professor and Head, Psychology Department, A.N. College, Patliputra University, Patna, Bihar, India. 4 Ph.D. Scholar, A.N. College, Patna, Bihar India. Abstract The study was aimed to assess the role of different methods of treatment (allopathic versus allopathic cum yogic) on quality of life of volunteers incidentally chosen from five psychosomatic illnesses – asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and ulcer. Difference if any, between these illnesses with regard to quality of life was also investigated. Thus, 30 volunteers from each of these illnesses for both the treatment groups were selected (N=300). They were similar in certain demographic variables as well. The QOL Questionnaire by Sharma et al. (1998) for measuring the quality of life was used. Certain asanas and pranayams and yognidra were utilized for yogic intervention. Hypotheses framed for verification were firstly that patients from different illnesses will be similar to each other with respect to quality of life and secondly that treatment methods will have varying impact on the quality of life of the volunteers. Both these hypotheses were confirmed on the basis of statistical analysis. The findings have been discussed accordingly. Keywords: Yoga and quality of life, Yoga and psychosomatic illness, Yoga and wellbeing & Quality of life and Yoga. Introduction Psychosomatic illnesses are those which are supposedly caused by mental factors. Consequently quality of life is affected. Yoga on the other hand, is a holistic approach to treatment. The psyche and the soma simultaneously come into harmony of each other. The quality of life of a person is substantially enhanced. Other systems of therapy such as the allopathic system treats the body only. The relief is allegedly only symptomatic and temporary. There are studies suggesting that as compared to only allopathic treatment if yogic treatment is additionally imparted the quality of life of psychosomatic patients improves (e.g. Singh and Udupa, 1977; Bhushan, 1998; Bidwell et. al. 2012; Venkatesh, 1991). Hence it is deemed pertinent to investigate empirically, once again, whether common psychosomatic illnesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, asthma and ulcer are identical to one another in terms of quality of life and whether the aforementioned treatment methods have varying outcomes for each of these illnesses as regards the quality of life. With these objectives in mind it was hypothesized that different systems of treatment