Short description:

This book presents a solution to the lack of treatment for medically unexplained symptoms and body distress disorder by providing a comprehensive introduction to The BodyMind Approach (TBMA), developed by Helen Payne, and outlining guidance on applying TBMA principles to facilitated groupwork with patients/clients.

Long description:

Somatisation or medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) are distressing bodily symptoms for which tests and scans return normal. They can be incredibly debilitating conditions and people seek health care frequently due to their distress. They are common worldwide ? yet there are few interventions available to help those suffering with the physical and emotional pain they cause. This book presents a solution to this problem by providing a comprehensive introduction to The BodyMind Approach (TBMA), developed by Helen Payne, and outlines guidance on applying TBMA principles to facilitated groupwork with patients/clients.

Readers will learn how TBMA?s biopsychosocial learning model can be used to support patients in their self-management of anxiety associated with body distress disorder, as well as their accompanying bodily felt experience. Chapters explore:

• Adult learning theories and The BodyMind Approach


• An overview of medically unexplained symptoms/body distress disorder


• The BodyMind Approach


• The BodyMind Approach Programme


• Training of The BodyMind Approach facilitators


• Qualitative research on The BodyMind Approach


• Somatisation and adult attachment theory


• The BodyMind Approach to support students in Higher Education


• Somatisation, The BodyMind Approach and chronic stress

This unique book is essential reading for healthcare professionals and mental health practitioners as well as those who are, or wish to train, as a TBMA facilitator. It will also be a compelling read for a variety of other professions, including, but not limited to, dance movement psychotherapists, art psychotherapists, counsellors, health coaches, clinical psychologists, GPs, pain clinic staff and nurses.

?In their book, Management of Distressing Bodily Symptoms in Health: The BodyMind Approach using a Biopsychosocial Model, authors Helen Payne and Susan Brooks have given us a theoretically sophisticated approach for those who suffer  from Medically Undiagnosed or Organically Diagnosed Symptoms, also known as Bodily Distress Disorder. The book provides a substantial piece of much needed research into this arena, a guide for those who treat individuals suffering from the dilemma, as well as a program for those individuals who must endure these chronic symptoms. The authors clearly understand how those afflicted feel out of control in relation to their symptoms, which leads to further somatizations of depression, anxiety, and obsession. The BodyMind Approach (TBMA), unique and holistic, encourages program participants to attend to their movements and accompanying sensations, emotions, and perceptions that retain long held and concealed meanings. Learning to trust their bodily knowing, participants develop a newly born curiosity in reflecting upon themselves. In doing so, enduring habitual convictions are dismantled, and pathways for creating novel narratives emerge.

I strongly recommend this book for a wide audience including researchers, holistic practitioners, those interested in transformative learning methods, those who are afflicted with debilitating symptoms, and their family members.? 

Ruella Frank, Ph.D, author of "Body of Awareness: A Somatic and Developmental Approach to Psychotherapy", "The First Year and the Rest of Your Life", "The Bodily Roots of Experience in Psychotherapy".

'This book makes an important contribution to the literature through in-depth descriptions of distressing somatic symptoms and significant propositions of how to manage them. As the book unfolds, it becomes clear that The BodyMind Approach needs to be considered as an important addition to current offers in healthcare addressing the self-management of embodied and emotional aspects current provision does not offer. Strong evidence and abundance of clinical experience is married with insights from people struggling with their own symptoms, making this book a must for professionals, trainees and the general public alike.'

Professor Vicky Karkou, Director of the Research Centre for Arts and Wellbeing, Edge Hill University

'The latest addition to the subject of distressing somatic symptoms, ?Managing Distressing Somatic Symptoms in Health: The Body Mind Approach using a Biopsychosocial Model? by Helen Payne and Susan Brooks. The authors are to be congratulated.

Formally known as ?Medically Unexplained Symptoms? (MUS) and now introduced as ?Body Distress Disorder? in ICD-11 classification and as ?Somatic Symptom Disorder? in DSM-5, they account for a high proportion of consultations in both primary and secondary care services. While no organic cause can be found for these distressing symptoms, they suffer considerable long term psychological distress, disability and impaired quality of life.

This book with 10 chapters provides a comprehensive description on the subject including information on the historical background to the emergence of The BodyMind Approach (TBMA), and why the first author became interested in MUS. It draws on both the qualitative and quantitative research studies based on their own research as well as from others, and theoretical discussions too.

It is an interesting and valuable update to the existing literature for a wider audience.

I would like to make a strong endorsement for this book.'

Athula Sumathipala, MBBS, DFM, MD, FSLCGP (Sri Lanka), FRC Psych, CCST (UK), PhD (Lon); Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences, Keele University, UK; Emeritus Professor of Global Mental Health, Kings College London, UK; Associate Editor, British Journal of Psychiatry; Director, Institute for Research & Development Health & Social Care, Sri Lanka.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1 Adult Learning Theories and The BodyMind Approach 

Chapter 2 Overview Medically Unexplained Symptoms/Body Distress Disorder  

Chapter 3 The BodyMind Approach  

Chapter 4 The BodyMind Approach Programme  

Chapter 5 Training of Facilitators 

Chapter 6 Qualitative Research on The BodyMind Approach 

Chapter 7 Somatisation and Attachment Theory 

Chapter 8 The BodyMind Approach? to Support Students in Higher Education:  The Relationship between Student Stress, Somatisation and Mental Health  

Chapter 9 Somatisation, The BodyMind Approach and Chronic Stress  

Chapter 10 Epilogue