This Supplement of La Clinica Terapeutica includes abstracts of lectures, symposia, workshops, clinical case presen-tations and posters of the XII National Congress of the Research Group in Psychosomatics (RGP). The Congress is characterized by "The clinimetric method". It is a tribute to Alvan Feinstein who 40 years ago introduced clinimetrics as a discipline aimed at creating indices, rating scales and other expressions to describe or measure symptoms, physical signs and other clinical phenomena. The standard taxonomy, in fact, did not include, and still does not include, the patterns of symptoms, the severity of the disease, the effects of comorbid manifestations, the timing of the phenomena, the rate of disease progression, functional capacity and other clinical characteristics which demarcate the main prognostic and therapeutic differences between patients who otherwise would appear deceptively similar because they share the same diagnosis and laboratory results. Feinstein also added the psychosocial impact of the disease and treatment on individual, family and interpersonal relationships, including physical activity, the joys and pains of everyday life. Psychosomatics represents an extraordinary opportunity to improve clinical practice in medicine, psychiatry and clinical psychology by integrating biological, psychological and social factors. The bio-psycho-social model is still the theoretical and practical core of psychosomatics. It allows clinicians to see disease as the result of mechanisms of interaction at the cellular, interpersonal and environmental levels that include personality and familiarity. The congress organized by the GRP for 2022 highlights clinimetrics as a science at the service of psychosomatics capable of providing the clinical tools that allow a complete and accurate assessment according to the principles of the bio-psycho-social model. The abstracts describe innovative studies and reflections on the most current and hot topics of psychosomatics. The crucial role of clini-metrics, and of the specific type of assessment it makes possible in psychosomatics, are underlined in research and by the importance of proposing integrated treatments. An increasing number of studies suggest that the clinical process leading to diagnosis should be based on a comprehensive and accurate assessment based on clinically useful indices. Such indices are expected to be, among the others, sensitive in recording changes over time, capable of providing additional information according to the principle of incremental validity, able to investigate the person in the complexity linked to suffering and resources. This approach can be an antidote to the reductionist models that clash with clinical reality and that make the patient's visit a kind of distracted listening and subsequent random prescription. Clinimetrics and psychosomatic assessment thus become essential in clinical practice and research. The abstracts document how psychosomatics in clinical practice is more timing than ever and adequate for give a home to researchers and clinicians who want to venture off the beaten and clinically unsatisfactory paths of standard nosography.
Keywords: The clinimetric method.