PSYCHOSES

Abstract

ments to the picture. In delirium tremens the multiplicity of hallucinations is brought in connexion with vestibular influence. Multiplicity of hallucinations, macropsia, micropsia, and dysmetamorphopsia, indicate a vestibular influence on hallucinations. The postural mode of the body is in the same way influenced in alcoholic psychosis in which the vestibular apparatus is affected as in organic neurological cases or in normals in which the function of the vestibular apparatus is changed. Vestibular changes disrupt the unity of the postural model of the body. The symptomatology of delirium tremens and alcoholic hallucinosis is considered from this point of view. A case of barbital intoxication and a case of an eclamptic psychosis are studied from this point of view and the importance of the vestibular influence for the symptomatology of toxic psychosis is shown. But in psychosis the utilization and elaboration of the vestibular impulses in connexion with the activities of the whole brain are of special importance. The vestibular apparatus has a special function among the senses and is therefore in connexion with particular life experiences. Dysfunction of the vestibular apparatus is often the expression of two conflicting psychic tendencies. Giddiness occurs therefore in almost every neurosis. The neurosis may produce organic changes in the vestibular sphere. Giddiness is a danger signal in the sphere of the ego and occurs when the ego cannot exercise its synthetic function in the senses, but it occurs also when conflicting motor and attitudinal impulses in connexion with desires and strivings cannot be united any longer. It is as important from the psychoanalytic point of view as anxiety. The vestibular apparatus is an organ the function of which is directed against the isolation of the diverse functions of the body.