ABSTRACT
This chapter particularly addresses providers in the primary care setting (e.g. family physicians, internists, nurse practitioners, case and care managers, nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers) but may also be of interest to a broader audience in tertiary internal medicine. It emphasizes equipping the family physician (and care team) with knowledge and implementation skills for brief and user-friendly dispensed interventions that are empirically supported best practices. Patients with bodily distress syndrome and illness are a clinical challenge in relation to emotional and physical suffering, an often poor response to treatment, functional disability socially and in the workplace, and high use of medical services. The biopsychosocial concept is the foundational model for understanding the pathogenesis and course of bodily distress syndrome, but several cogent and more specific biological, social and developmental, cognitive, and personality factors are essential mediating mechanisms with explanatory value.
