Psychic insufficiencies associated with childbearing

Gr.8°. 168 Seiten. Originalkarton (= Acta Psychiatrica et Neurologica Supplement ,172). Papierbedingt leicht gebräunt. - In a number of lines of development in modern psychiatry increasing stress has come to be placed on the importance of the multifactorial origin of mental diseases. Psychic insufficiencies associated with childbirth are eminently suitable for this method of approach. There is a constant external factor, the delivery ("a single impact stress", Thomas & Gordon, 1959), but extremely varying individual reactions. What are the further factors which cause certain individuals to react with psychic insufficiencies during pregnancy or the puerperium, and what factors determine the kind of reaction? Factors which should be studied in this connection are, for example, signs of earlier physical or psychic vulnerability in the woman herself (or in her family); the vulnerability will have come to notice either in the form of preceding periods of psychic insufficiency or else by the occurrence of certain traits in the personality which particularly favour the appearance of disease symptoms. This last aspect has been given a relatively large amount of attention at the clinic in which the present author works (Lindbeeg 1964). It should further be examined whether there occur psychological factors implying that the women who develop the disease in connection with childbirth have special difficulties to overcome. Finally, it is no less important to investigate whether the delivery really is the constant factor one might be inclined to suppose it; it may be that the pregnancy and the delivery are combined with complications of a somatic-obstetric nature to a considerably greater extent in those women who develop symptoms of psychic insufficiency.