Subject(s)
Bronchopulmonary Sequestration/diagnostic imaging , Fetal Diseases/diagnostic imaging , Ultrasonography, Prenatal , Adolescent , Adrenal Glands/diagnostic imaging , Female , Follow-Up Studies , Humans , Infant, Newborn , Kidney/diagnostic imaging , Pregnancy , Ultrasonography, Doppler, ColorABSTRACT
Hysteria has two main explanatory models: a neurobiological and a psychodynamic. Both models can predict a memory deficit, as a consequence either of a neurophysiological inhibition or of a repression produced by a conflict. The existence of a conflict can also be proved by showing the stimulating, and not the inhibitory effect that conflictual material can have when appropriately shown. Ten female hysterical patients and 10 nonpsychiatric female patients were submitted to a short-term memory test consisting of pictures. In one session all pictures were neutral, while in a second session the neutral were mixed with mild sexually charged pictures, excluded from subsequent recall. The overall performances of the two groups were not significantly different, but the hysterical patients remembered better the pictures linked to the sexual ones, while the control group did the opposite. The results are consistent with the psychodynamic model, while they cannot be explained by the neurobiological.
Subject(s)
Conversion Disorder/psychology , Memory , Adult , Conflict, Psychological , Female , Humans , Inhibition, Psychological , Models, Psychological , SexABSTRACT
The psychological and clinical characteristics of 29 women who underwent laparoscopy for chronic pelvic pain (CPP) have been studied. Patients (n = 11) with CPP without obvious organic pathology showed a significantly higher mean score at the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale and more somatic symptoms which usually accompany depression than patients (n = 18) with CPP in whom pathology was found; they also showed higher frequencies for depressive disorders in personal anamnesis and for 'depression spectrum disorders' in family history. No differences between the two groups emerged for anxiety, somatization and inadequacy as measured by the Kellner-Sheffield Symptom Rating Test. Through a comparison with a group of women affected with another type of idiopathic chronic pain, and on the basis of the above reported results, the authors suggest that CPP without obvious organic pathology might be an expression of a depressive disorder.
