[Long-term observation of a female patient presenting with psychosomatic disorders and followed in psychotherapy].

Abstract

The author analyzes data assembled during psychotherapy of a 38-year-old woman who had experienced serious obstetrical difficulties, with two deaths in utero late in each pregnancy, ascribable, at least in part, to toxemia. These difficulties are brought into connection, in particular, with the patient's subconscious conflicts and the ambivalence of her planned motherhood. During psychotherapy a new pregnancy was successfully completed: the psychotherapy plan, at first indistinguishable from the request for medical help, especially as the treatment was undertaken in a general hospital, has been nevertheless progressively extended beyond the psychosomatic symptom to aim at a greater general comfort.