[Psychiatric aspects of chronic pain syndrome].

PURPOSE

to propose a systematization of the conditions in which chronic pain and psychiatric disturbances are concomitantly found, such systematization being based on the distinction between primarily psychiatric conditions and primarily neurologic conditions that have pain as their common central symptom. TYPE: literature review.

CONCLUSIONS

systematization of psychiatric disturbances presented as complaints of pain allows the physician to be more specific in the therapeutic scheme for each patient. Nowadays pain should be seen as an important symptom by the psychiatrist, as it points towards some entities in the psychiatric nosography of which treatment has been well established; the general practitioner should always be alert to think about a concomitant psychiatric disturbance that could justify the chronic nature of the complaint.