Synonyms
Psychalgia; Psychosomatic pain
Definition
Physical pain that is caused, increased, or prolonged by psychological (i.e., mental, emotional, or behavioral) factors. Also, a functional pain with no identified organic (i.e., physiological) cause
Historical Background
Hippocrates (400–300 BC) proposed one of the earliest theories of psychophysiological functioning when he suggested four bodily fluids (called “humors”) may be responsible for specific personality types as well as various physical and mental illnesses. However, with the advent of physical medicine during the Renaissance (1300–1600 AD), this proposed interaction of mind and body came to be regarded as unscientific. Many of the influential works of this era advanced the idea that a physical malady can (and should) be explained by its own mechanisms, thus separating the body from the mind. This view held until the emergence of behavioral medicine and health psychology in the 1960s. Major theories of this more recent era...
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Dattilo, N. (2018). Psychogenic Pain. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_2054
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_2054
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