Somatization: The Experience and Communication of Psychological Distress as Somatic Symptoms

Somatization implies a tendency to experience and communicate psychological distress in the form of somatic symptoms and to seek medical help for them. So defined, it is neither a disorder nor a diagnostic category but a generic term for a set of experiential, cognitive, and behavioral characteristics of patients who complain of physical symptoms in the absence of relevant medical findings. Such patients are ubiquitous in all medical care settings, pose difficult diagnostic and management problems, and overutilize health care thus contributing to its cost. Somatization may be transient or persistent, and may or may not be associated with a diagnosable medical or psychiatric disorder. The most common concurrence of somatization is with affective and anxiety disorders, and, to a lesser degree, the somatoform disorders. Persistent somatization poses a serious clinical, social, and economic problem and hence early identification of potential chronic somatizers should be attempted to avoid its development. Pain, fatigue, dizziness, and dyspnea are the commonest symptoms. Etiology of somatization is multifactorial and so should be its management.