Bodily Distress Disorders

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Why do a relatively large number of individuals complain about longstanding bodily complaints, and continue to seek medical care despite the absence of a medical cause of their complaints? This course focuses on the mental representations of bodily symptoms, and their effects on observable behaviours, which can be quite disabling. Interestingly, a shift in scientific focus has occurred in the last decade from stable individual traits towards more dynamic transdiagnostic psychological processes. The emphasis of this course is on the cognitive and behavioural mechanisms (e.g. conditioning, reasoning, attention, avoidance) that play a role in the aetiology and maintenance of chronic pain, shortness of breath (dyspnea), ringing in the ears, and fear of serious illnesses. Evidence-based cognitive-behavioural interventions are discussed. Because of its prototypical character, the problem of chronic pain and pain disorder will be the main focus of this course.

The course starts with an introductory session during which a modern approach of bodily distress disorders is presented and the example of low back pain is used to demonstrate this approach. Two sessions are workshops: in the first workshop session, students design an experimental/intervention study in smaller groups and in the second they present their design to the rest of the group and discussion, Q&A and critical reflection and feedback is stimulated.  In each of the 6 or 7 ‘meet-the-expert’ sessions, a lecturer specialised in a particular disorder from a collaborating university lab is invited, and students will be given the opportunity to actively interact with the experts. Finally, a visit to one of the experts’ labs will be organised. In previous years, this was the lab of the research group Health Psychology at the KU Leuven (Belgium). The course ends with an interactive mini-symposium during which students present their research proposal.