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Somatoform and dissociative disorders: assessment and treatment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

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The category ‘somatoform disorders' was introduced comparatively recently in DSM–III and thereafter in ICD–10: it is the umbrella term currently favoured to cover a heterogeneous group of interrelated and overlapping syndromes, which have been given many names over the years. All these syndromes have in common the process of somatisation: that is, the presence of physical symptoms unexplained by physical disease, with variable degrees of distress and loss of function, about which the patient consults doctors.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 1997 

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