Emotions as Body Illness

clipped from www.emotionalprocessing.org.uk Somatization is a persistent and puzzling clinical problem.  Patients are often sent for many consultations, usually starting in Primary Care, where it is estimated that they may account for 10% to 30% of visits to family doctors ipowski (1968) defined somatization as ‘‘the tendency to experience, conceptualise and / or communicate psychological states or contents as bodily sensations, functional changes or somatic metaphors’’.  This definition puts emphasis on the patient’s interpretation of the symptoms.  Psychosomatic theorists (e.g. Lask and Fosson, 1989) argue that somatic symptoms are a means of expressing distressing emotions. For those individuals that find acknowledging and expressing emotions difficult, they may, instead, learn to display their distress through bodily symptoms. In developmental terms, emotions are regarded as primarily biological events, with subjective feelings as a secondarily developed component