Abstract

The review of etiopathogenetic mechanisms and clinical manifestations of mental disorders highlights their diagnostic significance (as opposed to neurobiological approaches) in the field of psychosomatic pathology. Clinical, personal, psychological and other patterns common for the psychosomatic pathology are identified. It is emphasized, that those patterns are specific not only for psychosomatic pathology but for somatic, mental, psychosomatic, and affective disorders as well. It is indicated that similar neurotransmitter processes are involved in the pathodynamics of many diseases. The lack of specificity of these processes led to dissolving boundaries between mental pathology and diagnostic problems. There is no specific etiology, pathogenetic mechanisms, and environmental factors for a particular mental disorder. The only thing that combines these disorders is the presence of somatic symptoms in their structure. Analyzes of the works on the study of somatovegetative manifestations in mental disorders demonstrated that most of researchers inclined to classify such dysfunctions as somatic equivalents of mental pathology along with the current psychopathological disorders. This phenomenon allows us to assume that both the psyche and the body represent a unity that develops according to uniform laws. So, any pathology that affects one of the components of this unity involves another component in the pathological process. The obligatory pathogenetic factors as the basis of development and dynamic of internals dysfunction are examined. In other words, the subject of psychiatry is not limited to the pathology of the psyche, but also includes the pathology of the brain. This approach allows us to talk not about psychosomatic disorders, but about “non-psychiatric psychiatry,” widely represented in the general medical network in the form of “minor” (in the terminology of old authors) mental disorders in the form of psycho-vegetative, functional, somatoform and similar disorders.

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