You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Many will be indebted to the authors for their organization of the scattered and contradictory items in research already done in the field of Fatigue and Impairment. Their work at the Dartmouth Eye Institute, Dartmouth Medical School, led to their recognizing the need for a consistent and comprehensive view of fatigue. They have reviewed work in all relevant fields. Fatigue is regarded 'as an experiential patten arising in a conflict situation in which the general alignment of the individual may be described as an aversion. This particular pattern involves feelings of limpness and bodily discomfort which, besides being undesirable in themselves, are frequently taken as tokens of inadequacy for activity. The subjective constituents of this fatigue pattern are not to be taken as epiphenomena, or as symptoms of fatigue, but as fatigue itself.' Impairment is used in referring to specific tissue conditions.
They conclude that to know more about fatigue 'more must be known about the person as a whole'. To them fatigue is not an entity which can be measured in quantitative units, but is a phenomena which evolves chiefly 'from sets of emergent relationships'.
The historical review of allied concepts, the reviews of sleep and other periodicities, mental fatigue, personal factors in the work situation, conflict and frustration, chronic fatigue and related syndromes will be especially interesting to psychiatrists and psycho-analysts.
So much work is summarized that it is perhaps invidious to note that depression as a synonym for fatigue is not dealt with as adequately as psychiatrists and psycho-analysts would desire. Nevertheless this will be an invaluable book of reference to all psycho-analysts who are interested in the symptoms of fatigue.