1) Somatic Symptom Disorder. This is when psychiatrists consider your unexplained physical medical symptoms to be "all in your head." The debate over this condition is what made me write this article, although honestly I have not seen it covered much in the mainstream media. Currently in the DSM-IV, one must be suffering with at least eight unexplained medical symptoms arising before the age of 30, from various specified symptom groups including gastrointestinal pain, resulting in psychosocial impairment, in order to be diagnosed with Somatic Symptom Disorder. In the updated DSM-V, you will only require one distressing physical symptom (not necessarily gastro-related) for six months and a doctor's perception that you are thinking too much about or are overly preoccupied by the symptom. It does not require a thorough medical work-up before diagnosis. So when DSM-V rolls out in May, if for example you have joint pain for a few months and they don't know why, and your doctor thinks you're bugging him too much for an explanation, he can diagnose you with somatic symptom disorder. Then come the antidepressants and psychotropic drugs... Debate has raged about this since APA first described the upcoming DSM changes, but they are standing firm on their new diagnostic criteria for Somatic Symptom Disorder, as reported in the January 16, 2013 online edition of Psychology Today. This means that people with functional diseases like fibromyalgia or irritable bowel syndrome, or those with systemic diseases where the diagnosis emerges over time, such as multiple sclerosis or lupus, could be easily misdiagnosed with Somatic Symptom Disorder, and their symptoms dismissed.
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