Somatic Symptom Disorder or Somatoform Disorder

I have found an actual medical diagnosis that seems very similar if not equivalent to TMS. This is from the mayo clinic website, which is a credible Internet medical resource:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/somatic-symptom-disorder/basics/definition/con-20124065 (Somatic symptom disorder - Mayo Clinic)

Look at the causes:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/somatic-symptom-disorder/basics/causes/con-20124065 (Somatic symptom disorder Causes - Mayo Clinic)

• Genetic and biological factors, such as an increased sensitivity to pain
• Family influence, which may be genetic or environmental, or both
• Personality trait of negativity, which can impact how you identify and perceive illness and bodily symptoms
• Decreased awareness of or problems processing emotions, causing physical symptoms to become the focus rather than the emotional issues
• Learned behavior — for example, the attention or other benefits gained from having an illness; or "pain behaviors" in response to symptoms, such as excessive avoidance of activity, which can increase your level of disability

The one that stands out the most is the 4th one, which is decreased awareness of or problems processing emotions, causing the physical symptoms to be the focus rather than the emotional issues. That is the essence of TMS.

Anyway, I just found this interesting. I had no idea that Mayo Clinic actually recognizes TMS as a real medical/psychological disorder. Hopefully that gives some people who still have doubts about this to see that it is not only Dr. Sarno and a handful of other medical doctors who believe in this. It is an established mainstream medical diagnosis.

 

I would not be that fast getting to a conclusion.

My take on this is that it approaches the problem from a completely different angle, which is that doctors know well that there is a certain group of patients who obsess about their symptoms, "causing physical symptoms to become the focus rather than the emotional issues". I understood this, along with the 3rd one, as that people could be making too much out of their real structural problems. Established mainstream view is that structural problem in fact exists but some people are more predisposed to developing pain and pain behavior than others.

TMS is different. TMS theory says that it is your repressed emotions that get stored in your body, thus causing perception of pain and structural damage. Then an eager doctor finds the damage where a patient reports the pain. Then many medical tests, surgeries, botox and steroid injections follow, convincing the victim even more that they have a structural damage in that local spot. In fact, the "structural" damage is in the way they are thinking, so brain needs to be re-wired. Good news, the brain has more plasticity than previously was thought.

 

Pain and other symptoms of psychogenic origin are nothing new.
Francis Peabody well understood them in 1927, and I am sure they were understood long before that as well.
And the "disorder" described in the Mayo link, if you read it and especially the symptom page, can certainly exist in the absence of any medical cause. That is quite clear. "Unrelated to any medical cause that can be identified..." "You may or may not have another diagnosed medical condition associated with these symptoms." etc.

http://courses.washington.edu/hmed665i/MSJAMA_Landmark_Article_The_Care_of_the_Patient.html (MS/JAMA - Landmark Article: The Care of the Patient [full text JAMA, Mar. 19, 1927;88:877-882])

Read Arthur Barsky's article on Functional Somatic Syndromes. Same thing essentially. No physical disease at all needed.

 

[Deleted at BeWell's request]