title: Psychological defense mechanisms and manifest anxiety as indicators of secondary psychosomatic body pain.
abstract: 13 men and 27 women patients from an outpatient pain unit participated in the study. Blind to the research worker they were diagnosed by the responsible physicians as suffering from either primary somatic or secondary psychosomatic pain. The study explored whether manifest anxiety and number of primitive psychological defense signs could be used to classify patients into the two categories. Analysis indicated that with respect to manifest anxiety this was possible for the women but not for the men in that psychosomatic women exhibited raised manifest anxiety. Both men and women, diagnosed as psychosomatic, exhibited more primitive defense signs than patients diagnosed as somatic. Theoretical and clinical implications were discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Orebro, Sweden.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gustafson
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Källmén
mesh_terms: D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D006801:Humans; D008347:Manifest Anxiety Scale; D010146:Pain / Q000523:psychology*; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D011602:Psychophysiologic Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D013001:Somatoform Disorders / Q000523:psychology*