This intriguing volume presents the most contemporary views on the conceptualization and treatment of somatoform disorders and related conditions from experts in psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral approaches. It does so with respect to both perspectives, without advocating for either approach. By presenting expert views from diverse perspectives, the book raises, what is a central point in most of the chapters, that emotion, its processing and regulation, is a cornerstone of these disorders. The volume also highlights the role of pathogenic coping or defense mechanisms like dysfunctional avoidance (from a CBT perspective) and conversion (from the psychodynamic perspective) in the maintenance of psychosomatic symptoms. The volume’s contents include detailed literature reviews on the most common—and most treatment-resistant—mind/body conditions, including chronic pain, responses to trauma, alexithymia, and the spectrum of health anxiety disorders. Noted experts distinguish between types of medically unexplained symptoms, discuss their complex processes, and provide models for intervention where cognitive-behavioral or psychodynamic approaches may be appropriate or effective. And a fascinating case study of a patient presenting multiple trauma-related disorders explores therapist resourcefulness over a course of shifting symptoms and frustrating setbacks. Among the topics covered: Maintaining mechanisms of health anxiety: current state of knowledge. Negative affect and medically unexplained symptoms. Alexithymia as a core trait in psychosomatic and other psychological disorders. Trauma and its consequences for body and mind. Embodied memories, a new pathway to the unconcious. Psychotherapy among HIV patients: a look at a psychoimmunological research study after 20 years. Health anxiety: a cognitive-behavioral framework. The wealth of options discussed in Somatoform and Psychosomatic Disorders offers health psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, counselors, and psychoanalysts bold new ideas for case formulation, treatment planning, and intervention with some of their most intractable cases.

This book, with contributions emanating from the 21st World Congress of Psychosomatic Medicine held in Seoul in August 2011, presents the latest evidence-based information about the mechanisms, assessment, and management of psychosomatic disorders from a biopsychosociocultural perspective. Somatization is a process characterized by excessive or inappropriate focus on physical symptoms that are medically unexplained. It is highly prevalent in primary care medicine, as somatoform (psychosomatic) disorders tend to be chronic and can cause significant personal suffering and social problems as well as financial burden.​ ​

In the first section of this encyclopedic volume, Dr. Robert Kellner surveys the biological, psychological, and psychiatric studies on nine psychosomatic syndromes, draws conclusions about the complex etiology of these syndromes, offers guidelines for diagnosis, and recommends treatments based on research findings. The second section is an overview of the various processes that lead to bodily complaints, including somatization. The author discusses how psychosomatic syndromes described in the first section contribute to the symptoms of somatoform disorders and how knowledge gained from research on treatment of psychosomatic syndromes can be applied to the treatment of somatoform disorders.

Medically unexplained somatic symptoms are problematic in psychiatry, primary care settings, and other clinical areas. The burden they impose on health-care systems constitutes a significant public health problem. At the international symposium "Rethinking Somatoform Disorders," this problem was addressed by specialists working in somatoform disorders, psychiatric nosology, epidemiology, and biological and cross-cultural psychiatry. The meeting was the third of the Keio University International Symposia for Life Sciences and Medicine, in collaboration with the World Health Organization and the World Psychiatric Association.

Published in 1996, Psychosomatic Disorders is a valuable contribution to the field of Psychiatry/Clinical Psychology.

This book traces the theoretical history of psychosomatics in psychoanalysis, and with it the ways that psychoanalytically-trained clinicians have tried to understand and treat patients with complex psychosomatic symptoms. It offers a rethinking of the mind-body relationship in psychoanalysis, eschewing past dichotomies between the psychological and the corporeal, and today's either-or distinctions between symbolizing and non-symbolizing patients. Theoretical and clinical issues are considered from a broad and integrative perspective. Psychosomatic patients' best interests are served neither by an indiscriminate embrace of dazzling new findings, nor by discarding established ways of understanding them. This volume exemplifies an approach that takes advantage of the rich history of the past as well as exciting new work in the neurosciences. The opening historical chapter delineates the evolution of the field of psychoanalytic psychosomatics.

"Psychosomatic illness has no apparent physiological cause. By definition, it originates in the mind. But now, in this fascinating work, the foremost authority on the history of psychosomatic illness shows that the forms it takes are in fact a product of something much larger. Symptoms are produced not just by an individual's psychology, but also by one's genetic history and even by the time and culture in which we live. When we fall ill with psychosomatic pain, our symptoms most often - and quite unconsciously - reflect our particular ethnic group, age, class, or gender." "In this landmark work, Edward Shorter continues his important inquiry into the nature of psychosomatic illness. Drawing on a vast array of engrossing, colorful, and often humorous historical case studies, he explores the newly discovered relationship between social identity and the varieties of psychosomatic disorders." "Tracing the interplay of cultural and biological factors in psychosomatic distress, Shorter shows that while some individuals are genetically more predisposed than others to develop chronic illness, their particular historical era and circumstances will influence the likely nature of their maladies. Women have more abdominal problems than men. Eastern European Jews have more nervous disorders than other ethnic groups. Boston Irish tend to experience their distress in their faces and throats, while Boston Italians have more general malaise. Adolescent middle-class girls are most prone to anorexia nervosa. An extraordinary number of fashionable wealthy people became invalids in the early part of this century and spent their lives traveling from spa to spa in search of a cure." "Shorter explores how symptoms are forged by a number of factors, including the stress caused by changing patterns of family life and by patterns of persecution and the influence of the medical community and the media, which position some symptoms as more acceptable than others. His lively anecdotes reveal for the first time just how stress, popular notions, and social forces together construct many of our symptoms and create much of our pain."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved