What Does Psychosomatic Mean?

Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsSymptomsCausesDiagnosisTreatmentCopingFrequently Asked Questions

Table of ContentsView All

View All

Table of Contents

Symptoms

Causes

Diagnosis

Treatment

Coping

Frequently Asked Questions

A common misconception is that a psychosomatic disorder is imaginary or “all in the head.” Psychosomatic symptoms are real and require treatment, just like any other illness.

Unfortunately, the pervasive socialstigmaof psychosomatic illness prevents some people from seeking treatment.Stigma is also present in research and medical communities, partly because of health professionals' own experiences.

Psychosomatic Symptoms

Learning about howmental and emotional stress manifests physicallycan help reduce the effects of stress on your health. Common physical signs of stress include:

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Sex-Based Psychosomatic Symptoms

Bodily signs of stress can vary between the sexes. For example, when stressed, people assigned female at birth often report symptoms such as fatigue (despite getting enough sleep) andirritability, as well as signs such as abdominal bloating and menstrual changes.

However,symptoms of stress in those assigned male at birthare more likely to include chest pain, increased blood pressure, and changes in sex drive.

Age-Based Psychosomatic Symptoms

Stress in the teen yearscan be especially intense, particularly during periods of major social adjustment and hormonal shifts. Frequently, adults attribute signs of stress to typical “teen angst” rather thanadolescent depression.

Older adults are also prone to depression as they contend with isolation,loss and grief, and health problems.If you are caring for an aging loved one, it’s important to know thesigns of depression in older adults.

Psychogenic vs. Psychosomatic PainPsychogenic pain and psychosomatic pain both describe physical signs and symptoms, but their meaning is slightly different:Psychogenic painresults from psychological disorders or issues such as mental oremotional stress. In other words, psychological problems are the main genesis of the pain.Psychosomatic painhas a known physical source, but psychological issues such as anxiety play a role in how the pain progresses—for example, depression exacerbating an endocrine disorder.

Psychogenic vs. Psychosomatic Pain

Psychogenic pain and psychosomatic pain both describe physical signs and symptoms, but their meaning is slightly different:Psychogenic painresults from psychological disorders or issues such as mental oremotional stress. In other words, psychological problems are the main genesis of the pain.Psychosomatic painhas a known physical source, but psychological issues such as anxiety play a role in how the pain progresses—for example, depression exacerbating an endocrine disorder.

Psychogenic pain and psychosomatic pain both describe physical signs and symptoms, but their meaning is slightly different:

Causes of Psychosomatic Illness

The exact mechanisms of stress are not completely understood, but researchers know that stress anddepressioncan manifest as physical pain and illness.It’s a complex process, but here’s an analogy that might help.

Compare your body to a pressure cooker. If it’s allowed to vent its steam, it works efficiently. If it can’t release steam, the pressure continues to build until the lid blows off. Now, imagine that the cooker is under pressure already and you apply more pressure to keep the lid on. When the container can no longer hold in all the pressure, it will break at its weakest point.

Like the pressure cooker giving way at the weakest point of its structure, stress-related illness is most likely to develop where your body is already weakened.

Someone who is under stress and does not or is unable to vent their emotions will eventually reach an emotional breaking point. This may result in physical symptoms or trigger an episode ofmajor depression.

In retrospect, you may recognize some warning signs that a break was coming. For example, if you tend to strain your neck, you might experience increasedneck painwhen you’re stressed. Back pain, stomach trouble, and headaches are other common ways for stress to take up residence in your body.

Stress can also compromise your immunity.For example, some people tend to catch colds, the flu, or other illnesses and infections when under pressure and may take longer to get better.

Part of the body’sfight-or-flight response to stressis the release of certain chemicals, such as adrenaline, that can be very useful in a life-or-death situation. However, if the body has high amounts of these chemicals or they are released continuously over an extended period (such as withchronic stress), they may do more harm than good.

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Psychosomatic Illness Diagnosis

When you see a healthcare provider for physical symptoms, they look first for physical causes. If none is obvious, coming up with a diagnosis and treatment plan can be tricky.

If you have a psychosomatic disorder, you might feel as if your provider is not taking your symptoms seriously, thinks you’re making them up, or believes they’re “all in your head.” However, it is important for your doctor to understand the source of your symptoms in order to treat them effectively.

When unable to find a clear physical cause for your pain (such as an injury or infection), an astute healthcare provider may ask youhow you feel emotionally. The hope is that, if a source of stress can be identified, it can be treated—just as with an obvious physical injury or illness.

Somatic Symptom Disorder

Treatment for Psychosomatic Illness

You may be referred to a mental health professional, but that doesn’t mean your physical symptomsrequire only psychological treatment. Learning how to effectivelymanage stressis important, but it can take time. In the meantime, your clinician may treat your physical pain and other symptoms with medication, mindfulness therapy, orcognitive therapy.

Returning to the example of neck pain: If it tends to worsen with stress, learning to deal with stressful triggers can certainly help—but the pain is real.

Although the stress might start in your brain, it can cause the release of chemicals (such ascortisol) that produce inflammation in your neck muscles. This causes you very real physical pain that your healthcare provider can address.

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Another way to think of psychosomatic illness is as a river that floods after a dam breaks. The most effective way to prevent more flooding is to fix the dam. However, the flooding that’s already happened must be dealt with while the dam is being repaired.

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Coping With Stress

There are different kinds of stress. Positive stress, also known aseustress, keeps life invigorating and interesting. It’s the feeling that makes you want to get up in the morning and keeps you motivated. If you’ve ever enjoyed the thrill of a roller coaster ride or felt a sense of excitement and fulfillment when completing a project, you’ve experienced “good” stress.

On the other hand, if you’ve experienced a major loss, a big life change, orother negative stressors, you know what “bad” stress feels like.

Just as with positive stress, you can feel negative stress in your mind and body. When you can identify your mainsources of stress, you can learn coping mechanisms. One of the first and most important is to avoid holding in your feelings.Another is to avoid unhealthy strategies, such as overusingalcohol.

Healthy coping methods abound; it’s just a matter of finding what works best for you. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Remember thateveryone handles stress in their own way. Two people in the same stressful situation can react very differently. Once you understand how stress affects you emotionally and physically, you can work on developing healthy and effective ways to manage it.

How to Handle a Stress-Related Psychosomatic Illness

A Word From Verywell

In dealing with psychosomatic illness and the physical effects of stress, learn to let go of what isn’t serving you. First, accept that you are human, and allow yourself some grace. Then, do the difficult but necessary emotional work, such as allowing yourself to feel emotions that are hard to confront.

Also let go of expectations and old guilt—the “shoulds” that have been guiding your behavior. You might benefit from giving up control in some areas of your life or easing offyour tendency to strive for perfection.

Remind yourself thatit’s OK to fall short of your goalsas long as you are trying and doing your best. As you are identifying stress in your life, you may realize a big source is the pressure you put on yourself—and therefore, it’s within your control to release.

Psychogenic pain occurs due to psychological rather than physical factors (such as breaking a bone or having arthritis). It describes pain that results from a person’s emotions, fears, or beliefs. Psychogenic pain is related to psychosomatic illness in that a person’s psychology plays a role in how they experience pain, making it feel better or worse.

If the worsening of physical symptoms cannot be linked to new physical injury, illness, or disease, they might be psychosomatic. Your healthcare provider may run diagnostic tests to rule out medical causes. If none are found, you may be diagnosed with a psychosomatic illness. Getting this diagnosis as soon as possible is critical to starting treatment and improvement.

18 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Von dem Knesebeck O, Lehmann M, Löwe B, Makowski AC.Public stigma towards individuals with somatic symptom disorders - Survey results from Germany.J Psychosom Res. 2018;115:71-75. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychores.2018.10.014Dmitriev M, Reverchuk I, Glavatskikh M, Khejgetyan A, Kotsura O.Medical students' attitudes toward mental stigmatization and its associated with own and familial psychosomatic disorders.E3S Web Conf: Innovative Tech Sci Educ. 2020:210:19020. doi:10.1051/e3sconf/202021019020American Psychological Association.Stress effects on the body.Wallensten J, Åsberg M, Nygren Å, et al.Possible biomarkers of chronic stress induced exhaustion - A longitudinal study.PLoS One. 2016;11(5):e0153924. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0153924Golbidi S, Frisbee J, Laher I.Chronic stress impacts the cardiovascular system: Animal models and clinical outcomes.Am J Phys-Heart Circ Physiol. 2015;308(12):H1476-H1498. doi:10.1152/ajpheart.00859.2014U.S. National Library of Medicine.Stress in childhood.National Institute of Mental Health.Older adults and depression.Bransfield R, Friedman K.Differentiating psychosomatic, somatopsychic, multisystem illnesses and medical uncertainty.Healthcare (Basel). 2019;7(4):114. doi:10.3390/healthcare7040114Bieliauskas LA.Stress and Its Relationship to Health and Illness. Routledge.Vachon-Presseau E, Roy M, Martel MO, et al.The stress model of chronic pain: Evidence from basal cortisol and hippocampal structure and function in humans.Brain. 2013;136(Pt 3):815-27. doi:10.1093/brain/aws371Fava GA, Cosci F, Sonino N.Current psychosomatic practice.Psychother Psychosom. 2017;86(1):13-30. doi:10.1159/000448856Kurlansik SL, Maffei MS. Somatic symptom disorder.American Family Physician. 2016;93(1):49-54ACleveland Clinic.Psychosomatic disorder.UT Southwestern Medical Center.Easy tips to relieve stress-related neck and back pain.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Coping with stress.U.S. National Library of Medicine.Stress.Cleveland Clinic.Pain: Psychogenic pain.Mental Health America of Eastern Missouri.Psychosomatic symptoms.

18 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Von dem Knesebeck O, Lehmann M, Löwe B, Makowski AC.Public stigma towards individuals with somatic symptom disorders - Survey results from Germany.J Psychosom Res. 2018;115:71-75. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychores.2018.10.014Dmitriev M, Reverchuk I, Glavatskikh M, Khejgetyan A, Kotsura O.Medical students' attitudes toward mental stigmatization and its associated with own and familial psychosomatic disorders.E3S Web Conf: Innovative Tech Sci Educ. 2020:210:19020. doi:10.1051/e3sconf/202021019020American Psychological Association.Stress effects on the body.Wallensten J, Åsberg M, Nygren Å, et al.Possible biomarkers of chronic stress induced exhaustion - A longitudinal study.PLoS One. 2016;11(5):e0153924. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0153924Golbidi S, Frisbee J, Laher I.Chronic stress impacts the cardiovascular system: Animal models and clinical outcomes.Am J Phys-Heart Circ Physiol. 2015;308(12):H1476-H1498. doi:10.1152/ajpheart.00859.2014U.S. National Library of Medicine.Stress in childhood.National Institute of Mental Health.Older adults and depression.Bransfield R, Friedman K.Differentiating psychosomatic, somatopsychic, multisystem illnesses and medical uncertainty.Healthcare (Basel). 2019;7(4):114. doi:10.3390/healthcare7040114Bieliauskas LA.Stress and Its Relationship to Health and Illness. Routledge.Vachon-Presseau E, Roy M, Martel MO, et al.The stress model of chronic pain: Evidence from basal cortisol and hippocampal structure and function in humans.Brain. 2013;136(Pt 3):815-27. doi:10.1093/brain/aws371Fava GA, Cosci F, Sonino N.Current psychosomatic practice.Psychother Psychosom. 2017;86(1):13-30. doi:10.1159/000448856Kurlansik SL, Maffei MS. Somatic symptom disorder.American Family Physician. 2016;93(1):49-54ACleveland Clinic.Psychosomatic disorder.UT Southwestern Medical Center.Easy tips to relieve stress-related neck and back pain.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Coping with stress.U.S. National Library of Medicine.Stress.Cleveland Clinic.Pain: Psychogenic pain.Mental Health America of Eastern Missouri.Psychosomatic symptoms.

Von dem Knesebeck O, Lehmann M, Löwe B, Makowski AC.Public stigma towards individuals with somatic symptom disorders - Survey results from Germany.J Psychosom Res. 2018;115:71-75. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychores.2018.10.014Dmitriev M, Reverchuk I, Glavatskikh M, Khejgetyan A, Kotsura O.Medical students' attitudes toward mental stigmatization and its associated with own and familial psychosomatic disorders.E3S Web Conf: Innovative Tech Sci Educ. 2020:210:19020. doi:10.1051/e3sconf/202021019020American Psychological Association.Stress effects on the body.Wallensten J, Åsberg M, Nygren Å, et al.Possible biomarkers of chronic stress induced exhaustion - A longitudinal study.PLoS One. 2016;11(5):e0153924. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0153924Golbidi S, Frisbee J, Laher I.Chronic stress impacts the cardiovascular system: Animal models and clinical outcomes.Am J Phys-Heart Circ Physiol. 2015;308(12):H1476-H1498. doi:10.1152/ajpheart.00859.2014U.S. National Library of Medicine.Stress in childhood.National Institute of Mental Health.Older adults and depression.Bransfield R, Friedman K.Differentiating psychosomatic, somatopsychic, multisystem illnesses and medical uncertainty.Healthcare (Basel). 2019;7(4):114. doi:10.3390/healthcare7040114Bieliauskas LA.Stress and Its Relationship to Health and Illness. Routledge.Vachon-Presseau E, Roy M, Martel MO, et al.The stress model of chronic pain: Evidence from basal cortisol and hippocampal structure and function in humans.Brain. 2013;136(Pt 3):815-27. doi:10.1093/brain/aws371Fava GA, Cosci F, Sonino N.Current psychosomatic practice.Psychother Psychosom. 2017;86(1):13-30. doi:10.1159/000448856Kurlansik SL, Maffei MS. Somatic symptom disorder.American Family Physician. 2016;93(1):49-54ACleveland Clinic.Psychosomatic disorder.UT Southwestern Medical Center.Easy tips to relieve stress-related neck and back pain.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Coping with stress.U.S. National Library of Medicine.Stress.Cleveland Clinic.Pain: Psychogenic pain.Mental Health America of Eastern Missouri.Psychosomatic symptoms.

Dmitriev M, Reverchuk I, Glavatskikh M, Khejgetyan A, Kotsura O.Medical students' attitudes toward mental stigmatization and its associated with own and familial psychosomatic disorders.E3S Web Conf: Innovative Tech Sci Educ. 2020:210:19020. doi:10.1051/e3sconf/202021019020

American Psychological Association.Stress effects on the body.

Wallensten J, Åsberg M, Nygren Å, et al.Possible biomarkers of chronic stress induced exhaustion - A longitudinal study.PLoS One. 2016;11(5):e0153924. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0153924

Golbidi S, Frisbee J, Laher I.Chronic stress impacts the cardiovascular system: Animal models and clinical outcomes.Am J Phys-Heart Circ Physiol. 2015;308(12):H1476-H1498. doi:10.1152/ajpheart.00859.2014

U.S. National Library of Medicine.Stress in childhood.

National Institute of Mental Health.Older adults and depression.

Bransfield R, Friedman K.Differentiating psychosomatic, somatopsychic, multisystem illnesses and medical uncertainty.Healthcare (Basel). 2019;7(4):114. doi:10.3390/healthcare7040114

Bieliauskas LA.Stress and Its Relationship to Health and Illness. Routledge.

Vachon-Presseau E, Roy M, Martel MO, et al.The stress model of chronic pain: Evidence from basal cortisol and hippocampal structure and function in humans.Brain. 2013;136(Pt 3):815-27. doi:10.1093/brain/aws371

Fava GA, Cosci F, Sonino N.Current psychosomatic practice.Psychother Psychosom. 2017;86(1):13-30. doi:10.1159/000448856

Kurlansik SL, Maffei MS. Somatic symptom disorder.American Family Physician. 2016;93(1):49-54A

Cleveland Clinic.Psychosomatic disorder.

UT Southwestern Medical Center.Easy tips to relieve stress-related neck and back pain.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Coping with stress.

U.S. National Library of Medicine.Stress.

Cleveland Clinic.Pain: Psychogenic pain.

Mental Health America of Eastern Missouri.Psychosomatic symptoms.

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Psychosomatic Symptoms#

Sex-Based Psychosomatic Symptoms#

Age-Based Psychosomatic Symptoms#

Psychogenic vs. Psychosomatic Pain#

Causes of Psychosomatic Illness#

Psychosomatic Illness Diagnosis#

Somatic Symptom Disorder#

Treatment for Psychosomatic Illness#

Coping With Stress#

A Word From Verywell#