Contents

Disclaimer

Oxford University Press makes no representation, express or implied, that the drug dosages in this book are correct. Readers must therefore always check the product information and clinical procedures with the most up to date published product information and data sheets provided by the manufacturers and the most recent codes of conduct and safety regulations. The authors and the publishers do not accept responsibility or legal liability for any errors in the text or for the misuse or misapplication of material in this work. Except where otherwise stated, drug dosages and recommendations are for the non-pregnant adult who is not breastfeeding.

Show Summary Details
Page of

Pain disorder 

Pain disorder
Chapter:
Pain disorder
Author(s):

Sidney Benjamin

and Stella Morris

DOI:
10.1093/med/9780199696758.003.0132
Page of

PRINTED FROM OXFORD MEDICINE ONLINE (www.oxfordmedicine.com). © Oxford University Press, 2020. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Medicine Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 26 October 2020

Persistent somatoform pain disorder is an ICD-10 diagnosis, which is included in the group of somatoform disorders. The term pain disorder is used in DSM-IV, and for convenience that is the term used here to refer to both classifications, unless a distinction needs to be made. This chapter aims to clarify the relationship of pain to mental disorders, the diagnosis of pain disorder and its differential diagnosis, and then considers how psychosocial factors contribute to pain, the treatments that stem from them, and the psychiatrist's potential contribution. Pain has been defined by the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) as ‘an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage’. ‘Pain’ is used here in this sense; it is not used primarily to indicate mental distress or anguish. As a perception, pain is essentially a subjective experience, and is directly accessible only to the patient. By contrast, tissue damage can be assessed by others, and its relationship with the subjective characteristics of pain have been shown to be variable, modulated by social and cultural experience, as well as within the central and peripheral nervous system.

Access to the complete content on Oxford Medicine Online requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts for each book and chapter without a subscription.

Please subscribe or login to access full text content.

If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.

For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.