[Psychosomatic sterility. Search for a hypothesis for personaity structure using Moretti's graphology method]. / Sterilità psicosomatica. Ricerca per una ipotesi di struttura di personalità con la metodologia grafologica morettiana.

Over the past three years the authors have performed a random clinical study on couples who came to the aim of identifying the possible presence, in those cases in which it was not possible to pinpoint an organic or functional etiological factor, of a relationship between personality structure and so-called "sterility sine cause" which according to the recent studies by Pancheri and Zichella on reproductive emotionality, is thought to caused by a factor of psychosomatic origin, The substantiality of the concept of reproductive emotionality, otherwise referred to as sexual instinct, was put forward in 1962 by Padre Gerolamo Moretti, a leading figure of Italian graphology. Research to date, carried out using traditional methods of clinical psychology, interview and tests, in an attempt to determine a particular personality profile, has not produced completely satisfactory results. From the literature it does not appear that graphological analysis has been applied in research of this nature. Graphology, if used by competent and appropriately trained persons, is certainly a powerful and refined diagnostic method which enables an idiographic, holistic and integrated personality profile (intelligence and temperament) tp be obtained for the subject in question. Moretti's temperament classification was used to define the personality structure of patients: assault, resistance, assignment and expectation. Research using graphological techniques has revealed that it is possible to define a personality structure within which suspected "sine cause" patients may be classified. In comparison to the control group, there was a prevalent attitude expressing a tendency to reserve, introversion, diffidence, anxiety, excessive and sometimes unmotivated concern regarding persons and things, attachment to one's own ideas, inflexibility of one's own position, scarce capacity to make oneself available, excessive attention to formal aspects. A number of practical considerations also emerged from the research: the good level of acceptance and compliance with the diagnostic instrument used and the fact that the patient in question does not necessarily have to be present. Due to the ease of obtaining an example of the patient's handwriting, graphological analysis could be outinely requested as the first approach in suspected cases of sterility due to psychosomatic causes.