The role of body image in psychosomatic symptom choice.

Abstract

Utilizing patients with interior symptoms and exterior symptoms, the authors tested two hypotheses: "patients with psychosomatic symptoms involving the body exterior would have a greater tendency to conceive of their bodies as surrounded by an impenetrable barrier than would patients with symptoms involving the body exterior [and] the body image itself played a role in the choice of interior vs exterior body symptom sites". The results obtained by applying the measures to the control and experimental groups "suggest that body image characteristics play a significant role in the choice of interior vs exterior psychosomatic symptoms".