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8 cerebral commissurotomy patients and 8 precision-matched normal control subjects were shown a 3-minute videotaped film symbolically depicting the deaths of a baby and of a boy. After each of 4 showings, all subjects were questioned about the symbolic and emotional contents of the film. Content analyses of the subjects’ spoken and written responses were carried out on the lexical level. The commissurotomized patients, in comparison to their normal controls, used a lower percentage of affect-laden words, had a higher percentage of incomplete sentences, used a higher percentage of auxiliary verbs, and used a lower percentage of adjectives. Commissurotomy patients were significantly closer to the alexithymic pole of a factor derived from these 4 variables.

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A structural explanation of psychosomatic personality structure is proposed, that of a functional or physical deconnection of the two cerebral hemispheres. If the affective and symbolic energies of the right hemisphere cannot be externalized through verbal expressions of the left hemisphere (alexithymia), then they are apt to be directed inward, thereby contributing to psychosomatic personality structure. In an experiment, 8 cerebral commissurotomy patients and 8 precision-matched normal control subjects were shown a 3-minute videotaped film symbolically depicting the deaths of a baby and a boy. Gottschalk-Gleser content analysis of the subjects’ verbal responses to the film was carried out for anxiety and hostility scales. A complex of shame and total anxiety in combination with hostility directed both inward and outward, was interpreted as an indicator of ‘psychosomatic personality structure’. Cerebral commissurotomy patients showed a significantly higher level of psychosomatic personality structure than did normal controls.

The Hoppe-Bogen [5] finding of alexithymia in 12 commissurotomy patients is examined, using 6 sentential-level items corresponding to 6 of the 8 key alexithymia items in the Beth Israel ‘Psychosomatic Questionnaire’. 8 of the same commissurotomy patients and 8 precision-matched normal control subjects were shown a 3-min videotaped film about death. Content analyses of the subjects’ spoken and written responses to this film were carried out, with directional support found for all items; however, only 2 of these differences in group means were statistically significant. The items were factor analyzed, and a 1 -factor solution obtained. Factor score comparisons replicated the earlier study, as commissurotomy patients were found to be more alexithymic than normal controls.