Objectives of the course: The course is designed to enable students to understand the necessity of a holistic bio-psycho-social approach in the management and treatment of patients with physical diseases as well as with 'functional' (somatoform) disorders. The course aims at offering basic knowledge on how to examine patients suffering from physical diseases and psychiatric comorbidities and on how to diagnose psychiatric disorders in these patients, which might be a challenging task in every day clinical practice. An additional aim is to teach students to be able to establish a patient/doctor relationship based on trust and understanding and to acknowledge and interpret the patient's reactions and ways of adjustment/coping with the physical illness. They are also taught how to break bad news, how to deal with terminally ill patients or with patients who are in pain and how to integrate the dynamics between the present physical illness and the patient's life story.

Contents of the course: The origins of Psychosomatic Medicine: Neurobiology, Psychoanalysis and Consultation-Liaison (C-L) Psychiatry – The psychiatric assessment of the medically ill patient - Psychosomatic medicine in primary care - Functional somatic syndromes and medically unexplained symptoms - Psychoanalysis and psychosomatics - Ego mechanisms of defense –Patient/doctor relationship: Breaking bad news, the dying patient, grief, transference and countertransference - The psychodynamic life narrative of the patient with physical illness – Psychological reactions to physical illness –Taking personality into account when managing hospitalized patients - Ethics - Brief psychiatric assessment of the medically ill patient and the 'doctor's pocket card' – Specific topics: Postnatal depression, amputation, the role of the skin in normal and abnormal development - Research in Psychosomatics.

Mode and outcomes of teaching: Learning occurs through lectures by mental health professionals as well as by assigning projects to the students distributed in 12 thematic entities. After the completion of the course the students present their projects at an one day conference. By the end of the course the students should be able to recognize psychiatric symptoms in medically ill patients, the patients' psychological reactions and the way that the physical illness is integrated into the patient's life narrative. They should also have gained knowledge in diagnosing and managing functional syndromes and somatoform disorders. They should also be familiar with the assessment and management of the medically ill patient with psychiatric comorbidities, with how to break bad news, how to manage the grieving and the dying patients, with the dynamics of the patient/doctor relationship and with the principles of ethics and deontology. Finally, they should have achieved a satisfactory degree of knowledge in research in psychosomatic medicine by being able to do literature review, to be familiar with studies' design and to critically appraise a scientific manuscript.

Hours of training per student: 26

From the 8th Semester

ECTS: 2