Understanding Somatization in the Practice of Clinical Neuropsychology (AACN Workshop Series)

I'm a speech pathologist who works with teens with Asperger's Syndrome in a public school. We see a lot of somaticization in our students, and it is often used as a way to escape less preferred activities. I and the other teachers need to know how to view this condition and how to set limits around the behaviors we see, *without* causing harm or ignoring what could be a serious condition. Lamberty's book helps us with that. He explains how somaticization is defined and how it manifests itself. He gives an excellent explanation of the kinds of treatment that have been shown to work. This is particularly helpful, because it teaches us the "active ingredients" in any successful therapy. That means we can incorporate those active ingredients in our own relationships with our students. Finally, Lamberty's books contains short clinical vignettes about actual patients, which is very instructive because it shows how to set appropriate limits.

Quack Gregory Lamberty outlines somatization disorders and "medically unexplained" symptoms. The only problem is that they are medically explained. For example there are approximately 4,000 articles in peer reviewed medical journals showing frank physical pathology (disease) in ME (aka CFS). The same can be said for fibromyalgia and IBS.If you doubt ME is a somatic illness read the fascinating Osler's Web: Inside the Labyrinth of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Epidemic