Somatic symptom disorder (SSD) is a mental disorder characterized by an excessive focus on physical symptoms—such as pain or shortness of breath —that cause significant distress or impairment. What is Somatic Symptom Disorder? Somatic symptom disorder is a psychological condition characterized by a persistent preoccupation with physical symptoms, such as pain, weakness, or shortness of breath, that causes significant distress and impairment in daily functioning. Somatic symptom disorder is diagnosed when a person has a significant focus on physical symptoms, such as pain, weakness or shortness of breath, to a level that results in major distress and/or problems functioning. Somatization occurs when psychological distress manifests as physical symptoms in the body. For example, someone experiencing intense grief might develop severe fatigue, or a person under chronic. Somatization is the generation of somatic symptoms due to psychological distress, often coinciding with a tendency to seek medical help for them. [1][2] The term somatization was introduced by Wilhelm Stekel in 1924. Somatic symptom disorder (SSD formerly known as somatization disorder or somatoform disorder ) is a form of mental illness that causes one or more bodily symptoms, including pain. Somatic symptom disorder involves focusing too much on physical symptoms such as pain or tiredness. This focus causes major emotional distress and makes it hard to function. Somatization is the expression of mental phenomena as physical (somatic) symptoms. Disorders characterized by somatization extend in a continuum from those in which symptoms develop unconsciously and nonvolitionally to those in which symptoms develop consciously and volitionally. What is somatic symptom disorder? A person with somatic symptom disorder has one or more somatic (physical) symptoms over a long period of time (usually half a year or more). Somatisation means that physical symptoms are caused by biological, social, or psychological factors, not a specific disease. These symptoms, like pain or fatigue, can also be caused by medical conditions. Functional disorders are more complex and persistent forms of somatisation.