The Mind-Body Interface in Somatization

W. Lynn Smith, PhD, ABPN, was an associate clinical professor of anesthesiology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and for more than forty years specialized in the diagnosis and treatment of somatizing syndromes. He founded and operated the first hospital-based neuropsychological laboratories in the United States, where he did considerable research in personality, chronic pain, and psychosomatics.Patrick W. Conway, DO, MDiv, has more than thirty years of experience in the fields of pastoral ministry and counseling. He has practiced as a psychotherapist in hospital-based psychiatric settings and is certified in the delivery of Dialectical Behavior Therapy.Jonathan O. Cole, MD, ABPN, was professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a Senior Consultant at McLean Psychiatric Hospital (Belmont, Massachusetts).

The Mind-Body Interface in Somatization: When Symptom Becomes Disease represents a unique contribution to the clinician's tool chest for diagnosing and treating psychosomatic illness. This book breaks new ground by asking and answering many of the key questions that trouble every practicing clinician: Why do patients use somatization? Can we predict who will be a somatizer? Is there an underlying process involved? Why are these patients so difficult to treat? Beginning with a discussion of contemporary disease classification, The Mind-Body Interface in Somatization clarifies matters greatly by talking in terms of chronic and situational somatization, showing that chronic patients use illness as a way of life, while situational patients somatically respond to existential crises, and revealing how both are rooted in the mind-body interface. Drawing on elements of personality theory, the authors discuss the core conflicts and character structure inherent in both types of somatization and suggest treatment options appropriately geared toward the needs of each. The Mind-Body Interface in Somatization describes how chronic somatization can be addressed by cognitive-behavioral therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, while situational somatization can be managed with short-term existential psychotherapy. Concluding with a discussion of medications that may be helpful to the somatizing patient, this volume represents an original approach to explaining what goes on in the mind of the somatizer.

Chapter 1 1: Somatization and the Power of Conventional Wisdom Chapter 2 2: Somatization and Its Discontents Chapter 3 3: A View from outside the Box Chapter 4 4: Ambivalence and Progressive Regression in Somatization Chapter 5 5: Perception and Multi-Level Perceptual Diagnosis Chapter 6 6: Dealing with Impasse Resistance Chapter 7 7: Cognitive Behavioral Treatments of Chronic Somatization Chapter 8 8: Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Chronic Somatization Chapter 9 9: The Situational Somatizing Patient in Treatment Chapter 10 10: Psychopharmacology and Somatization Chapter 11 11: Death or Transformation