ABSTRACT
Health care practitioners frequently encounter patients with physical symptoms for which no adequate organic explanation can be found. Patients with such medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) often report high levels of distress, disability and psychiatric morbidity and consume disproportionate amounts of health care resources. Historically, chronic MUS have been regarded as difficult to treat and there have been few effective psychological interventions for these patients. In recent years, however, effective cognitive behavioural interventions for MUS have been developed and the number of patients referred to psychological services with these conditions is increasing. This chapter provides an overview of the cognitive behavioural assessment, formulation and treatment of patients with MUS and summarises the treatment evaluation research in this area.
