Pauline, 25, had been admitted to the hospital with pain and swelling in her leg that no amount of morphine could quiet—her third admission for the same complaint. She had been in and out of hospitals ...

University of Pittsburgh neuroscientist Peter L. Strick, PhD, and colleagues recently published a study [1] in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences tracing the neural circuitry connecting ...

'I told you I was sick'—a headstone also made famous by Spike Milligan(Cali4beach; Flickr.com/CC/BY/2.0) 'I think I've probably thought I had cancer in nearly every ...

The term psychosomatic disorder is used to refer to a condition in which a physical disease is thought to be caused or made worse by mental stress or related factors. Since this disorder correlates ...

There are few things scarier than getting sick. It makes us feel so vulnerable. We’re at the mercy of our bodies and, often, the only respite we receive is whatever treatment or advice we can get from ...

Psychosomatic medicine (PM) is a newly licensed subspecialty in the field of psychiatry; it is also known as consultation-liaison (C-L) psychiatry. C-L psychiatry provides knowledge, practice, and ...

A 'chasm of misunderstanding and miscommunication' is often experienced between clinicians and patients, leading to autoimmune diseases such as lupus and vasculitis being wrongly diagnosed as ...

Every month, 10% of incoming patients at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi suffer from psychosomatic disorders. While 10% may not sound like too much, the long term ...

In a recent commentary in the Lancet, Chloe Saunders and colleagues made a compelling point: “We suggest it is time to break taboos based on a dualistic understanding of physical versus mental illness ...

A man loses the power of his legs but tests suggest he is perfectly fit. Could he be imagining it? In this extract from her new book, the neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan lifts the lid on psychosomatic ...