Psychopathology and ‘Pseudo-Normality’ in Ulcerative Colitis

A Global Psychosomatic Study of 16 Consecutive Patients with Ulcerative Colitis

“…In fact he is absorbed in the actual world and if he manages to project himself into the future or to deal with the past he transforms both of them into elements of a present where simple events are dominant. There is, therefore, an 1 Alexithymia has recently been detected in patients with UC by other authors through questionnaires [Sifneos, 1973;Sifneos et al, 1977), interviews \Fava andPavan, 1977;Jackson, 1977), psychological tests and interviews [Nakagawa et al, 1979) and Rorschach test ( Vogt et al, 1979]. …”

“…Denial, connected by some authors [e.g. Jackson, 1977] with a poor capacity for insight and for fantasy proper of the subject with alexithymic characteristics, is present especially in cases 1-5 ,7 , 13 and 14. In cases 2, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 14, a tendency to rationalization, to tell stories with 'happy endings or to tell jokes in order to avoid any emotional involvement was frequently noted.…”

Sleep, Scratching and Dreams in Eczema

“…Although there are many clinical reports of a disorder of emotional expression in psychosomatic patients [Jackson, 1977;McDougall, 1974;Bick, 1968;Schur, 1955], the concept of alexithymia or a failure to link up words, conscious experience, and emotions remains a controversial one. This may partly be due to the global nature of the postulated disorder, which makes it difficult to grasp.…”

“…Recently several workers described a specific type of personality disorder which Sifneos [1972] termed 'alexithymie'. Alexithymie persons show a 'relative constriction in emotional functioning' and an 'inability to find appropriate words to describe their feelings ' [Sifneos, 1972] which, it has been suggested, increase the risk of development of psychosomatic disorder [Jackson, 1977] and may be a contra-indication to interpretative psychotherapy [Nemiah et al, 1976;Brown and Bettley, 1971], Alexithymie individuals are said to display undifferentiated emotions which are uncontrolled in their effects, expressed physically and divorced from feeling. It is reported that neither the self nor other people are cared for by alexithymie analysands [Krystal, 1979;McDougall, 1974], a finding which may be related to a detachment from feeling.…”

Personality Pathology Underlying Chronic Prostatitis

“…One consequence of the unsatisfactory mother-infant relation ship is that the child does not achieve the capacity to retain the representa tions of loved objects in his fantasy, which later damages his whole person ality development, resulting in rather different pathological combinations in narcissistic and in borderline disorders. The psychosexual development of these patients is at the pregenital level [Jackson, 1977] making it possible for etiologically the same disorder, a psychosomatic disorder, to manifest itself with symptoms of different personality pathologies, the key factor being the absence of fantasy through failure in the mother-infant relation ship.…”