Terminology

Please Note: Pain here is an umbrella term for all kinds of chronic symptoms (fatigue, dizziness, IBS, migraines, etc.).

Second, there are many terms for the kind of pain & physical symptoms we are talking about here, and there are also several that overlap with one other but are not always identical. It can be quite confusing! Here’s a quick primer:

• *Neuroplastic Symptoms - the term most frequently used in the field today; again, neuroplastic symptoms are different than structrural (see above)

• Neural Pathway Symptoms - a synonym for neuroplastic symptoms

• *Nociplastic Symptoms - coming out of recent neuroscience research, seen as a synonym for neuroplastic symptoms

• Primary Pain - the new classifications of chronic pain coming out of the WHO in the upcoming ICD-11, synonym for neuroplastic pain. Secondary pain is pain that is subsequent to an injury, illness, or disease.

• Mind-Body Syndrome - Dr. Howard Schubiner uses this interchangeably with “TMS”

• Neural Circuit Disorder - Dr. Howard Schubiner’s more recent term, instead of MBS or TMS

• Psychophysiological Disorder (PPD) - developed by Dr. David Clarke (Dr. Clarke also calls this “Stress Illness”) - in September 2024, Dr. Clarke renamed his organization from PPDA to ATNS (Association for the Treatment of Neuroplastic Symptoms)

• *CSS (Central Sensitization Syndrome) - a diagnosis given by some medical doctors for a nervous system that has become hypersensitive (can overlap with CRPS)

• CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome) - CRPS is thought to be different from but overlapping with neuroplastic pain. CRPS Type 2 is following an injury to the nerve and is the new term for Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD), whereas CRPS Type 1 is for those without an originating injury to the nerve and is therefore thought by many in the field to be the same as neuroplastic pain or primary pain

• AMPS (Amplified Musculoskeletal Pain Syndrome) or Myofascial Pain Syndrome- diagnoses given by some medical doctors for chronic pain in the muscles, joints, or other parts of the body, without any originating injury or underlying inflammation

• Psychosomatic Illness or Somatoform Disorder - terminology stemming from the work of Sigmund Freud (and Charcot and others) on “hysteria” in women in the late 19th & early 20th centuries

• Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS) - “TMS” is neuroplastic pain’s original name, coined by John Sarno, M.D. in 1999.   But please note that while the new neuroscience research on chronic pain has taken us well beyond Dr. Sarno’s original ideas, people still widely use the term “TMS” to refer to a wide range of mind-body symptomatology. Sometimes people call it “Tension Myoneural Syndrome” attempting to bring the TMS term more up to date. This is not a term Lara uses given how it does not reflect current neuroscience and neuroplastic symptoms are only on occasion due to from “tension” or “myositis” (muscle inflammation)