This brand new title addresses the complex issues faced by primary health care practitioners in treating and managing patients with ‘medically unexplained symptoms'. It aims to develop guidelines and principles to help identify patients with medically unexplained symptoms, as they are typically underdiagnosed, and to manage symptoms more effectively with active patient involvement.

Medically unexplained symptoms and somatisation are the fifth most common reason for visits to doctors in the USA, and form one of the most expensive diagnostic categories in Europe. The range of disorders involved includes irritable bowel syndrome, chronic widespread pain and chronic fatigue syndrome. This book reviews the current literature, clarifies and disseminates clear information about the size and scope of the problem, and discusses current and future national and international guidelines. It also identifies barriers to progress and makes evidence-based recommendations for the management of medically unexplained symptoms and somatisation. Written and edited by leading experts in the field, this authoritative text defines international best practice and is an important resource for psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, primary care doctors and those responsible for establishing health policy.

Despite the rapid advances in medical science, the majority of people who visit a doctor have medically unexplained symptoms (MUS), symptoms that remain a mystery despite extensive diagnostic studies. The most common MUS are back pain, abdominal pain, headache, fatigue, and dizziness. This book addresses the obstacles of managing people with MUS in our modern day society from both a historical and contemporary perspective. Most MUS are psychosomatic in origin, caused by a complex interaction between nature and nurture, between biological and psychosocial factors. Psychosomatic symptoms are as real and as severe as the symptoms associated with structural damage to the brain. Unique and concise, the book explores the biological and psychosocial mechanisms, the clinical features, and current and future treatments of common MUS. Exploring the unsolved in an accessible manner, Medically Unexplained Symptoms invokes the methodologies of medical science, history, and sociology to investigate how brain flaws can lead to debilitating symptoms.

Health psychology is a rapidly expanding discipline at the interface of psychology and clinical medicine. This text offers a comprehensive, accessible, one-stop resource for clinical psychologists, mental health professionals and specialists in health-related matters.

Written by leading clinicians and research experts in the fields of child development and psychopathology, this book is an authoritative and up to date guide for psychologists, psychiatrists, paediatricians and other professionals working with vulnerable children. The opening chapters outline neurobiological, genetic, familial and cultural influences upon child development, especially those fostering children's resilience and emotional wellbeing. Discussion of the acquisition of social and emotional developmental competencies leads on to reviews of child psychopathology, clinical diagnoses, assessment and intervention. Developed with busy professionals and trainees in mind, it is comprehensively yet concisely written, using visual aids to help the reader absorb information rapidly and easily. This book is an essential purchase for those working or training in all clinical and community child settings.

This book is based on extensive research in assessment and treatment of patients with functional disorders and provides a thorough background to functional disorders as well as the etiology, classification and treatment of the disorders. The book primarily targets clinicians in primary care, non-psychiatric specialties and other health care professionals. The chapters combine research and clinical experience and also provide techniques that can be applied in daily clinical practice, both in terms of identifying the patients as well as helping the patients to better cope with their disorder. The highly structured hands-on treatment programme described in the book is now a compulsory part of the specialist training of Danish primary care physicians and has won the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicines Alan Stoudemire Award for Innovation and Excellence in Psychosomatic Medicine Education.

CBT for Long-Term Conditions and Medically Unexplained Symptoms describes how cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) can be used to treat anxiety and depression with a co-morbid long-term physical health condition (LTC) or medically unexplained symptoms (MUS). The book teaches cognitive behavioural therapists and other clinicians to help patients deal with the psychological aspects of physical symptoms, whatever their cause. It is divided into three parts, beginning with core skills for working with people with LTC and MUS. This includes assessment, formulation and goal setting. Part II focuses on CBT for LTC and includes chapters on low intensity interventions, working with depression and anxiety using protocols, and a consideration of an identity and strengths-based approach to working with LTC. The final part provides details of a formulation driven approach to working with MUS, broken down into individual chapters on working with behaviours, cognitions and emotions. With numerous case examples, the book provides accessible and practical guidance for mental health professionals, particularly CBT practitioners, working with anyone with long-term conditions or MUS.

Sometimes described as "the nemesis of the primary care physician," somatoform disorders are frustrating, expensive to treat, and under-investigated. Somatic Presentations of Mental Disorders provides a fascinating and practical review of the epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment of this ill-defined category of disease. Somatic Presentations of Mental Disorders summarizes the proceedings of a unique international conference that convened experts from across disciplines to review perspectives on somatoform disorders. The broad range of experience and specialization results in a compendium that addresses both theoretical and practical issues presented in somatoform disorders. For the researcher, the book offers a thorough and critical overview of the research landscape, surveying and synthesizing the available literature from around the world on all aspects of the disorder. Acknowledging the unique challenges presented in studying such a heterogeneous collection of disorders, the authors identify specific gaps in the research literature. Somatic Presentations of Mental Disorders also addresses controversial issues of nosology in advance of the publication of DSM-V. Despite its utility for researchers, the book primarily serves as an invaluable reference and resource for the practitioner. Organized with the clinician in mind, Somatic Presentations of Mental Disorders surveys the latest data on phenomenology; etiology and clinical course; and treatment options. Unlike other literature on this difficult topic, the authors thoroughly explore the entire range of this category of disorders, including conversion disorder, chronic pain and fatigue, and the multitude of presentations of medically unexplained symptoms. Aimed at both primary care and mental health practitioners, the book addresses crucial issues for effective diagnosis and treatment, including: Comorbidity and association with anxiety and depressive disorders Unique insights into cultural factors affecting the presentation and treatment of somatic disorders around the globe The prevalence of misdiagnosis, and contemporary diagnostic tools and techniques to help avoid a missed organic diagnosis The complicated interrelationship of somatoform disorders and substance abuse The efficacy of various treatment modalities, including pharmacology and cognitive behavioral therapy Collaboration between primary care and mental health providers to maximize treatment outcomes Comprehensive, thoughtful, and up-to-date, Somatic Presentations of Mental Disorders is a must-have both for researchers in the field and for clinicians with somatizing patients.

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 open access book sets out the stress-system model for functional somatic symptoms in children and adolescents. The book begins by exploring the initial encounter between the paediatrician, child, and family, moves through the assessment process, including the formulation and the treatment contract, and then describes the various forms of treatment that are designed to settle the child’s dysregulated stress system. This approach both provides a new understanding of how such symptoms emerge – typically, through a history of recurrent or chronic stress, either physical or psychological – and points the way to effective assessment, management, and treatment that put the child (and family) back on the road to health and well-being.