ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a selective discussion of somatization and depression, and of related phenomena that contribute to the preferential reporting of physical, rather than emotional complaints. It explores the relationship among depression, somatization, and organic disease through the examination of some specific and perplexing syndromes. The syndromes are chronic fatigue, chronic pain, fibrositis, and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Depression and somatic complaints can coexist in medical patients not because of somatization but because both arise independently consequent to the medical illness. Chronic fatigue syndrome is associated with weakness, myalgia, memory loss, and depression. Chronic pain of obscure origin has been referred to in the past as chronic pain syndrome, idiopathic pain disorder, pain prone-disorder, depression-pain syndrome, and dysthymic pain disorder. Fibrositis describes as "a poorly defined painful disorder of presumably rheumatic origin in which specially skilled examiners might appreciate tender, nodular abnormalities in muscle and other associated soft tissues".
