somaticizer

n. a person whose physical illnesses are caused by neurosis. Subjects: English, Medical

Editorial Note: A somaticizer will have genuine physical symptoms of illness whereas a hypochondriac will not.

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Citations: 1988 Alan Wofelt Death and Grief (Mar. 1) p. 118: The somaticizer is the person who converts his or her feelings into physical symptoms. 1995 Nick Cummings Focused Psychotherapy (Aug. 1) p. 21: Early after its inception in the mid-1940s, the Kaiser Permanente HMO in Northern California discovered that 60 percent of physician visits were by patients who had no physical disease. The relationship between emotional stress and physical symptoms was not clearly understood at the time, and these patients were labelled “hypochondriacs.” In time, the HMO physicians were persuaded to use a less pejorative term, and the designation “somatizer” was subsituted to refer to persons who were displacing emotional problems into physical symptoms.…Garfield decided somaticizer should be triaged into a psychological system. 1996 U.S Court of Appeals for 5th Circuit, Western District of Louisiana (June 11) “No. 94-40691: Guilbeau v. W.W. Henry Co., et al.”: The results and Friedberg’s analysis indicated that Guilbeau was a somaticizer, meaning that he complained of physical ailments without physical cause.

Posted 20 Jul 05 | Permalink | Tell a Friend