Somatoform Disorders Overview

Somatoform Disorders

• Somatoform disorders involve physical symptoms with primarily psychosocial causes
• Patients do not intentionally produce or guide symptoms
• Hysterical Somatoform Disorders:
  • Actual changes in physical functioning
  • Difficult to distinguish from genuine medical conditions
  • Examples: Conversion disorder, Somatization disorder, and pain disorder associated with psychological factors
• Conversion Disorder:
  • A psychosocial conflict or need is converted into physical symptoms affecting voluntary motor or sensory function
  • Symptoms often neurological (paralysis, blindness, loss of feeling)
• Somatization disorder:
  • Marked by numerous recurring physical ailments without an organic basis
  • Also known as Briquet's syndrome
• Pain disorder associated with psychological factors:
  • Pain is the primary symptom, with psychosocial factors playing a major role in its onset, severity, or continuation
• Preoccupation Somatoform Disorders:
  • People misinterpret and overreact to minor body symptoms or features
  • Examples: Hypochondriasis and body dysmorphic disorder

Factitious Disorders

• Illness with no identifiable physical cause
• Patient intentionally produces or fakes symptoms to assume a sick role
• Munchausen Syndrome: Chronic and severe factitious disorder
• Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy:
  • Caregivers produce illnesses in their children

Dissociative Disorders

• Major changes in memory without clear physical causes
• Dissociative Amnesia:
  • Inability to recall important personal events or information
  • Localized: Loss of memory for a specific time period
  • Selective: Inability to recall some, but not all, events in a specific period
  • Generalized: Loss of memory for all past events
  • Continuous: Continuous inability to recall past events
• Dissociative Fugue:
  • Sudden and unexpected travel away from home or customary place of work
  • Inability to recall past, confusion about identity, or assumption of a new identity
• Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder):
  • Presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states
  • Subpersonalities: Unique sets of memories, behaviors, thoughts, and emotions
  • Switching: Sudden shifts between subpersonalities
• Depersonalization Disorder:
  • Feeling detached from one's mental processes or body, like observing oneself from outside
  • Memories and identities remain intact, but the sense of self changes

This quiz explores somatoform disorders, which involve physical symptoms primarily caused by psychosocial factors. Learn about various subtypes such as conversion disorder and somatization disorder, along with their characteristics and diagnostic challenges. Understand how these conditions differ from genuine medical issues.