Recognizing and treating uncommon behavioral and emotional disorders in children and adolescents who have been severely maltreated: somatization and other somatoform disorders.

This article reviews current knowledge about somatoform disorders in children and adolescents. Somatoform disorders are likely to occur more frequently in children and adolescents who have been severely maltreated than in others. The symptoms of somatoform disorders are reviewed, strategies for distinguishing somatoform disorders from other disorders are examined, and treatment strategies are explored.