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.
Five cases of encephalopathy associated with syndromes of progressive muscular atrophy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and a nonspecific muscular atrophy, as well as psychic disturbances, are described. The psychic disturbances are considered to be manifestations of personality deviations which are expressions of the premorbid personalities of the patients. The authors begin their article with three propositions: 1, a monistic concept of psychophysiological processes in which the psychological and the physiological aspects are merely two phases of a common system; 2, that degrees of integrational complexity exist in psychophysiological processes and that the predominantly physiological process is less complex than the predominantly psychological process; 3, a holistic view of personality that considers the latter as an integrated organism-environment system. The elaboration of these propositions uses editorial material from Psychosomatic Medicine and from Alexander as evidence to say that both psychic and somatic phenomena take place in the same system and are probably two aspects of the same process. The authors contend that the three propositions have not been sufficiently used in studies of neurological diseases. Using these propositions, they arrive at the statement that psychic disorder in brain lesions results from the tendency of the organism to maintain a state of organism-environment integration (Goldstein: Tendency to Ordered Behavior). The lesion interferes with the integrative function and then there is an attempt at integration on a lower level. According to the authors this concept is similar to the psychoanalytic concept of regression. They also claim similarity between their explanations and the explanations made by Hollos and Ferenczi for general paresis. Psychological testing was very sensitive in picking up mild encephalopathy while a striking finding was the absence of anxiety. Conceptual thinking was impaired; the 'organic signs'