SOMATOFORM DISORDERS
DEFINITION |
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The somatoform disorders are a group of
mental disturbances placed in a common category in the fourth (1980)
edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM-IV) on the basis of their external symptoms. These disorders
are characterized by physical complaints that appear to be medical
in origin but that cannot be explained in terms of a physical
disease, the results of substance abuse, or by another mental
disorder. In order to meet DSM-IV's criteria for a somatoform
disorder, the physical symptoms must be serious enough to interfere
with the patient's employment or relationships, and must be symptoms
that are not under the patient's voluntary control.
It is helpful to understand that the present classification of these
disorders reflects recent historical changes in the practice of
medicine and psychiatry. When psychiatry first became a separate
branch of medicine at the end of the nineteenth century, the term
hysteria was commonly used to describe mental disorders
characterized by altered states of consciousness (for example,
sleepwalking or trance states) or physical symptoms (for example, a
"paralyzed" arm or leg with no neurologic cause) that could not be
fully explained by a medical disease. The term dissociation was used
for the psychological mechanism that allows the mind to split off
uncomfortable feelings, memories, or ideas so that they are lost to
conscious recall. Sigmund Freud and other pioneering psychoanalysts
thought that the hysterical patient's symptoms resulted from
dissociated thoughts or memories reemerging through bodily functions
or trance states. Prior to the fourth edition of DSM in 1980, all
mental disorders that were considered to be forms of hysteria were
grouped together on the basis of this theory about their cause.
Since 1980, however, the somatoform disorders and the so-called
dissociative disorders have been placed in separate categories on
the basis of their chief symptoms. In general, the somatoform
disorders are characterized by disturbances in the patient's
physical sensations or ability to move the limbs or walk, while the
dissociative disorders are marked by disturbances in the patient's
sense of identity or memory. |
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| SOMATOFORM DISORDERS RELATED ITEMS |
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