Saturday Debate: Is Only Thy Name Our Enemy? Perspectives on Somatic Symptom & Functional Disorders Through the ‎Lifespan

Saturday, November 11, 2023

11:45 AM – 12:45 PM CST

Location: JW Salon 6,7,8

Speaker(s)

Claire De Souza, BSc MD FRCPC (she/her/hers)

Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, CL Psychiatry Service; Associate Professor
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Jeffrey P. Staab, MD, MS, FACLP, DLFAPA (he/him/his)

Professor and Chair
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota

Moderator(s)

Durga Roy, MD, FACLP

Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Baltimore, Maryland

This year’s 2023 ACLP Debate will explore both sides of the coin when it comes to perceptions of functional disorders. Both contenders are leaders in the field of somatic symptom and functional disorders and will to go head-to-head in the Great Debate on the final day (Saturday) of CLP 2023 in Austin.

Dr. Claire DeSouza contends: The developmental perspective, which includes the biopsychosocial contributions a child is exposed to during formative years (including medical illness and trauma), plays a critical role in somatization.

Dr. Jeffrey Staab disagrees: Functional disorders and somatic symptoms are highly prevalent in persons who have not experienced trauma, and clinicians cannot rest their assumptions on the sole theory of traumatic experiences. There is strong evidence for a biological component of these disorders.

Learning Objectives:

Appreciate the continued importance of consultation-liaison psychiatrists to consider somatic ‎symptom and functional disorders in the treatment of patients
Apply knowledge about the developmental aspects of somatic symptom disorders into the treatment ‎of one's patient population
Understand somatic symptom disorders from a biopsychosocial, developmental, and system-based ‎perspective to educate our colleagues in other specialties via a coordinated interdisciplinary team ‎approach