Pain, psychogenesis, and psychiatric diagnosis

Abstract

The principles of medical classification are discussed. Psychiatric classification shares with the rest of medicine an inability to be totally systematic. Medical classification achieves comprehensiveness at the cost of specificity. The definition of pain is discussed and the interrelationships of selection factors and psychogenesis are reviewed as psychological causes of pain. Problems with the term somatizing are then considered. As a result, abandoning the term is proposed. Finally, the status of Pain Disorder in DSM-V is appraised. Although there is a need for the category, only a small number of cases should meet the criteria.