It responds to a growing crisis in women’s health marked by rising autoimmune disease, chronic comorbidity, and persistent gender bias in diagnosis and care.
By synthesizing psychiatry, neuroscience, gynecology, psychosomatic medicine, and social science, this collection advances integrative models of assessment and treatment that move beyond mind–body dualism. It foregrounds women’s lived experience as essential clinical evidence, treating subjective bodily distress as meaningful, patterned, and biologically real
We invite original research, reviews, clinical case series, and theoretical contributions that address the intersections of women’s mental health, trauma, embodiment, and systemic illness, with the goal of advancing integrative, holistic models of assessment and treatment.
Embodied Distress in Women: : Physical Manifestations of Psychological and Social Suffering
This special issue examines how women’s psychological and social distress is increasingly expressed through the body, including autoimmune disease, chronic illness, reproductive and perinatal conditions, somatic syndromes, chronic pain, and medically unexplained symptoms.