Psychiatric Aspects of Venereal Disease

The value of a psychiatric service within the venereal disease clinic.

“…MacAlpine (1957) regarded syphilophobia as a psychiatric symptom which could accompany or precede all stages of mental illness. Similarly, Kite and Grimble (1963) and Mayou (1975) found that venereophobia was associated with a variety of different psychiatric syndromes. Pedder (1970), by contrast, described three patients who showed no evidence of underlying psychiatric disorder.…”

“…Mayou (1975) found that 200%, of patients could be regarded as potential psychiatric cases, and Pedder and Goldberg (1970) reported an even higher prevalence. Most investigations of individual psychopathology have been confined to patients presenting with certain symptoms, such as syphilophobia (MacAlpine, 1957) and fear of venereal disease (Kite and Grimble, 1963), or with deviant or unconventional life-styles-for example male clients of prostitutes (Gibbens and Silberman, 1960), homosexuals (Fluker, 1966), and drug addicts (Linken, 1968). A recent exception is the report by Pedder (1970) of 40 unselected psychiatric patients referred during a 16-month period.…”

Good personality breakdown in patients attending veneral diseases clinics.

“…These figures are evidence that fear of V.D. is a powerful mental stress (Seale, 1966;Kite and Grimble, 1963). It is multifactorial by reason of good sentiment formation.…”

“…In two men fear provoked by anti-V.D. poster campaigns had been the sole cause of breakdown (Kite and Grimble, 1963). Posters and slogans were blamed by nine, television by two, and army lectures and films by four.…”

The sexually-transmitted diseases and marriage.

“…The prognosis of psychiatric illness related to venereal diseases is sometimes serious with a small mortality through suicide. Psychiatric illness amongst patients attending venereal disease clinics is by no means confined to those who are unstable emotionally, for a large proportion of such patients have had no previous psychiatric illness of any kind before the breakdown related to attendance at a clinic (Kite and Grimble, 1963). Patients with a good personality and who are usually emotionally stable are quite likely to break down psychiatrically with a venereal infection.…”