Psicastenia / Psychasthenia

Analisa a categoria médica da psicastenia, utilizada no fim do século XIX e início do século XX pela psiquiatria francesa. São apresentadas as características do quadro clínico bem como as principais hipóteses explicativas para os sintomas sustentadas por Pierre Janet, principal nome ligado à sistematização dessa categoria nosológica. É discutido ainda o modo como esse diagnóstico foi utilizado no Brasil, e as suas relações com o quadro da neurastenia no contexto da psiquiatria brasileira.

The article analyzes the medical category of psychasthenia, used by French psychiatry from the late nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries. It describes the clinical profile of psychasthenia and the main hypotheses meant to account for symptoms as defined and advanced by Pierre Janet, the central figure in systematization of this category. The article also looks at how this diagnosis was used in Brazil and how it related to the profile of neurasthenia within the context of Brazilian psychiatry.

The Objective Personality Characteristic of the Dry Eye Syndrome Patients

To investigate personality characteristic of dry eye patient, an investigation on objective personality characteristics of 41 dry eye syndrome patients was performed with MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory). Of 41 patients tested, 14 (34.1%)patients had at least one MMPI clinical scale more than 70 point of T-score, abnormality greater than 70 point of T-score occurred most frequently in the scales for ypochondriasis, psychasthe-nia, depression, hysteria, social introversion.In the group profile study, mean T-scores on each clinical scale were within normal range, and the highest scales in rank order were hypochondriasis, depression, psychasthenia. In the relation between results of TBUT and Schirmer test and T-scores of each clinical scale, correlation coefficient is insignificantly low (r0.4). Therefore we recommend comprehension of their emotional condition and an additional psycholgical management with classical treatment as dry eye syndrome management.