Bodily distress disorder

{Bodily Distress Disorder or BDD is a mental health disorder, involving psychological distress resulting from physical symptoms and excessive attention being focused on the physical symptoms by the patient.

Bodily Distress Disorder has been is a new diagnosis in the World Health Organization's ICD-11 classification manual, and while based on the concept of Bodily Distress Syndrome (BDS) proposed by Fink et al. (2007), there are significant differences.

Bodily Distress Disorder and ME/CFS
The World Health Organization's ICD-11 manual states that the following disorders are excluded from the diagnosis of bodily distress disorder:
 * Tourette syndrome (8A05.00)
 * Hair pulling disorder (6B25.0)
 * Dissociative disorders (6B60-6B6Z)
 * hair-plucking (6B25.0)
 * Hypochondriasis (6B23)
 * Body dysmorphic disorder (6B21)
 * Excoriation disorder (6B25.1)
 * Gender incongruence (HA60-HA6Z)
 * Sexual dysfunctions (HA00-HA0Z)
 * Tic disorders (8A05)
 * Sexual pain-penetration disorder (HA20)
 * Postviral fatigue syndrome (8E49)
 * Chronic fatigue syndrome (8E49)
 * Myalgic encephalomyelitis (8E49)

Controversy
There has been concern from researchers, clinicians, patients with ME/CFS, chronic pain patients and others that a medical condition with a biological cause may be diagnosed with Bodily Distress Disorder instead of a physical illness, which could result in the denial of medical tests to establish the correct diagnosis, the denial of necessary medical care, and for severely ill patients with ME/CFS possibly forced psychiatric treatment or hospitalization, such as that experienced by Karina Hansen and Sophia Mirza.

Notable studies and publications

 * 2017, Contesting the psychiatric framing of ME/CFS (Full text)


 * 2019, Bodily Distress Syndrome: Concerns About Scientific Credibility in Research and Implementation (Full text)

Learn more

 * 6C20 Bodily distress disorder - ICD-11 online version