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CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Psychopathology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1481405
This article is part of the Research Topic Bidirectional links between psychological trauma and physical symptoms: pathophysiology, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment View all 5 articles
Introducing a new specifier for Functional Somatic Disorder: A psychodynamic approach to investigating emotional factors
Provisionally accepted- Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
Functional Somatic Disorders (FSD) present a significant challenge in the health-care system, characterized by persistent, distressing physical symptoms without sufficient medical or psychiatric explanations. This conceptual analysis explores the psychodynamic approach to understanding emotional factors influencing FSD, proposing a new psychological specifier. While current diagnostic frameworks, such as DSM-5's Somatic Symptom Disorder (SSD) and ICD-11's Bodily Distress Disorder (BDD), incorporate psychological components, they do not fully address emotional dynamics. This paper advocates for integrating emotional factors into diagnostic criteria. The proposed specifier focuses on emotional factors such as unresolved grief, trauma, and unmet needs, which can exacerbate or cause somatic symptoms. Six signs indicative of emotional influence on somatic symptoms are discussed, emphasizing a collaborative investigative approach. Incorporating this specifier could enhance diagnostic accuracy, treatment planning, and patient outcomes by acknowledging the interplay between emotional and physical health.
Keywords: Somatic symptom disorder, Bodily distress disorder, Functional somatic disorder, emotional awareness and expression therapy, Intensive Short Term Psychodynamic Therapy Somatic Symptom Disorder, Intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy, Psychodynamic therapy
Received: 15 Aug 2024; Accepted: 01 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Maroti. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Daniel Maroti, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
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