Somatic symptom disorders in Humanistic and Body Psychotherapy

Abstract

Meeting patients with «somatic symptom disorders» our leading impression will be their complaint about only bodily symptoms with a strict refusal of psychosomatic explanations. Those patients are mostly seen as «difficult». They experience pain only on the physical level without access to an emotional and psychic context in relationships (alexithymia). Some etiologic considerations are helpful to develop a deeper comprehension about their specific ways of suffering from painful physical and relational distress. SSD-patients mostly didn’t experienced a loving embodied emotional and psychic resonance with their primary caretakers. By the way they were handled in their own body they learned to consider their body as an object of dysfunction and hostility. Body Psychotherapy easily can pick-up their focus of symptoms. This work presents principles and possibilities to help patients to improve their body-awareness as fundamental basis for helpful changes. As far as possible the developmental and neurobiological context and background is presented. The patients then do develop more agency and self-confidence in the way of handling their diseases by the newly acquired (bodily) self-awareness and educational information. In addition they evolve new possibilities to organize their life and relationships in more functional and confident ways. Some research studies support that the presented forms and principles of treatment can be helpful for SSD-patients.