The clinical inadequacy of the DSM-5 classification of somatic symptom and related disorders. An alternative trans-diagnostic model

The DSM -5 somatic symptom and related disorders chapter has a limited clinical utility. In addition to the problems that the single diagnostic rubrics and the deletion of the diagnosis of hypochondriasis entail, there are two major ambiguities: the use of the term “somatic symptoms” reflects an ill-defined concept of somatization; abnormal illness behavior is included in all diagnostic rubrics, but it is never conceptually defined. In the present review of the literature, we will attempt to approach the clinical issue from a different angle introducing the trans-diagnostic viewpoint of illness behavior and propose an alternative clinimetric classification system, based on the Diagnostic Criteria for Psychosomatic Research.