Longitudinal Development of Symptoms and Staging in Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology: A Tribute to Giovanni Fava

Patients as Health Producers: The Psychosomatic Foundation of Lifestyle Medicine

“…In the nineties I was particularly concerned about the high risk of relapse in depression and its link with residual symptomatology [24]. It was not easy to make the patients better, but it was even more difficult to keep them well.…”

Allostatic Load and Allostatic Overload: Preventive and Clinical Implications

“…Moreover, there is emerging evidence showing that allostatic load itself may be amenable to change: for example, cognitive behavioral therapy as well as Tai Chi Chih for insomnia, and group resilience training for women with metastatic breast cancer showed promising results in terms of reducing allostatic load parameters [ 16 ]. Fava and colleagues [ 7 ] recently introduced a staging system [ 17 ] to indicate where an individual is in the process of developing a clinical condition, with stage 0 standing for “euthymia” (i.e., functional allostasis), stages 1 and 2 representing allostatic load and overload, and stage 3 marking the onset of physical and/or mental illness [ 7 ].…”

The Psychosomatic Perspective

“…A comprehensive evaluation of a disorder also needs to assess the extent of its progression [24][25][26]. The staging model allows assessing longitudinally the stages of illness.…”