ABSTRACT
This chapter describes about helping patients who present with psychosomatic symptoms during the course of their therapy. Deciding whether a physical condition is psychosomatic is difficult for the psychotherapist, even when medical help is invoked and a psychological cause has been established. In psychosomatic illness an emotional disturbance in the patient has significantly contributed to the causation of a disturbance of physical functioning and/or structure. Psychosomatic disturbances of function are called somatisations. These include the effects of depression and anxiety on the body. These also include more discrete disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, hysterical conversion reactions, hypochondriasis, neuromuscular tension states, some migrainous headaches and a variety of minor skin complaints. Psychosomatic disturbances of structure include some cases of peptic ulceration, (especially duodenal ulceration), chronic ulcerative colitis, bronchial asthma, eczema and essential hypertension. This group of conditions carries significant morbidity and some may have life threatening complications.
