The expression of psychological distress through physical symptoms that have no identifiable medical cause.
From Greek 'soma' (body) + '-ization' (process of). Turning psychological pain into bodily symptoms.
Somatization is your body speaking what your mind can't — emotional pain shows up as headaches, stomach aches, or fatigue when there's no medical explanation.
Somatization has been historically gendered as women's psychological distress (especially in psychiatry), where women's physical complaints were dismissed as 'hysteria' or psychosomatic. This reinforced mind-body dualisms that pathologized women's reported pain.
Use 'somatization' clinically and neutrally. Acknowledge that gendered dismissal of symptoms (particularly in women, people of color, and chronic illness patients) affects diagnosis; avoid assuming somatization in marginalized patients without rigorous assessment.
["embodied stress response","pain processing"]
Women's health advocacy movements have reclaimed somatization discourse by centering patient expertise over physician skepticism; this reframes embodied experience as data, not denial.
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