Introduction
People suffering from medically unexplained physical symptoms represent the largest group of patients in psychosomatic and behavioural medicine, and therefore, their classification is of pivotal relevance. The psychiatric classification systems of the last decades used the concept of 'somatoform disorders' to identify this patient group. However, the classification and labelling of somatoform disorders has been a point of discussion since its introduction in 1980.[1] Although subsequent revisions introduced only minor modifications, DSM-5 brings some substantial changes of this category, and also suggests relabelling somatoform disorders to 'somatic symptom disorder' (SSD).
In this article, we will discuss whether SSD solves the existing problems around the concept of somatoform disorders. We will also discuss two alternatives with their pros and cons, namely the bodily distress disorder concept originally introduced by Per Fink and colleagues[2] and which is a concept that found the sympathies of the ICD-11 working group, but we will also discuss the traditional concept of functional syndromes which still benefits from its high acceptance in nonpsychiatric fields of medicine.
Curr Opin Psychiatry. 2014;27(5):315-319. © 2014 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins