OBJECTIVE To trace the movement from psychosomatic medicine to consultation-liaison psychiatry, the forces at work in shaping the change, and the extent to which the change is reflected in the latest revisions of the International classification of diseases (ICD-10) and the Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, third revision (DSM-III-R). METHODS Identification of important trends in the field was aided by discussions with fellow members of the panel of compilers of the consultation-liaison psychiatry literature review expert list published bi-annually in General Hospital Psychiatry. The expert list is based on appropriate literature searches. RESULTS Psychosomatic medicine continues as a science, studying the relationships between biological, psychological and social phenomena in health and disease. The main advocates of the clinical application of the concepts and findings of psychosomatic medicine are now the general hospital consultation-liaison psychiatrists and their allied health professional colleagues. The mainstreaming of psychiatry into medicine has accentuated the role of the consultation-liaison psychiatrist. In attempting to translate the advances in the field into a new taxonomy, both ICD-10 and DSM-III-R have created a new language that hinders understanding by a medical profession perhaps now less prone to resistance to holism. CONCLUSIONS There is a need for a valid taxonomy that addresses the most common form of psychiatric presentation in the community, that of physical/psychiatric co-morbidity, and for outcome studies based on such a taxonomy. Consultation-liaison psychiatrists need to educate their colleagues about the changes in concepts and terminology.