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PSAR 40(1):17-26 (1953)

Spontaneous Orgasm In a Case of Schizophrenia

Authors: Phillip Polatin MD, Donald B. Douglas MD

Introduction

The subject of this paper is an unusual sexual phenomenon, spontaneous orgasm, concerning which very few references are to be found in the psychiatric literature. So far as the authors can determine, no case of exactly this nature has been reported, although there are a few references to cases of the superficially similar and not uncommon symptom of hyperesthesia sexualis. The spontaneous orgasm herein described occurred without adequate stimulus of any kind that could be discovered; i.e., no conscious fantasy or mastur-batory activity took place, nor could any environmental stimulus be elicited.

Case Report

History. J. S. is a 25 year old, white single female whose illness probably began at about the age of 20, although she did not seek medical aid until she was 24.
Her upbringing had been a stormy one, mainly because of the constant quarrels, divorce and litigation between her parents, terminated by her father's death in a mental hospital. Her mother, a suspicious, withdrawn woman, resentful of the father's behavior, has cared for the patient's two siblings, a sister, 8 years younger and apparently normal, and a brother 4 years younger, who has been intractable, unpredictable and demanding and subject to odd behavior. After many accusations, the father left the mother when the patient was 17 years of age, taking the children with him. The patient often
From the Department of Clinical Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, N. Y.
Page 17
took her mother's place in caring for the two younger children and in the father's will was named their guardian. Court battles, dramatic flights from home and once even a kidnapping by the father were part of the patient's adolescence. Throughout all of this she always took the father's part and even now the patient has in storage many relics, legal depositions, letters, copies of wills, pictures of herself and her father together and with siblings, which she brings forth when speaking of the past.
Despite thes

PSAR 40(1):17-26 (1953)

Spontaneous Orgasm In a Case of Schizophrenia

Authors: Phillip Polatin MD, Donald B. Douglas MD

Introduction

Case Report

History. J. S. is a 25 year old, white single female whose illness probably began at about the age of 20, although she did not seek medical aid until she was 24.
Her upbringing had been a stormy one, mainly because of the constant quarrels, divorce and litigation between her parents, terminated by her father's death in a mental hospital. Her mother, a suspicious, withdrawn woman, resentful of the father's behavior, has cared for the patient's two siblings, a sister, 8 years younger and apparently normal, and a brother 4 years younger, who has been intractable, unpredictable and demanding and subject to odd behavior. After many accusations, the father left the mother when the patient was 17 years of age, taking the children with him. The patient often
From the Department of Clinical Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, N. Y.
Page 17
took her mother's place in caring for the two younger children and in the father's will was named their guardian. Court battles, dramatic flights from home and once even a kidnapping by the father were part of the patient's adolescence. Throughout all of this she always took the father's part and even now the patient has in storage many relics, legal depositions, letters, copies of wills, pictures of herself and her father together and with siblings, which she brings forth when speaking of the past.
Despite thes