[Leading symptom: vertebral pain - a psychosomatic study].

Two different groups of patients (n about 40 each) having vertebral column pain as a common indicating symptom were studied using the Giessen-Test. The answers were interpreted on the basis of standard scales and single items. The findings were: The statements obtained from both groups suggest a basic disturbance in the area of being loved--not being loved, as well as conflicts in connection with aging or maturing. Spinal column patients from my practice must deal predominantly with feelings of inadequacy, whereas, in the patients from a sanatorium, these feelings became evident only indirectly in their overcompensation. These patients exhibit an image of themselves that can only be interpreted as an "ideal self-image". Accordingly, practice patients are perceptively more depressive in their fundamental disposition than the sanatorium patients. It seems as though the outbreak of vertebral column syndrome occurs when--as is often the case in threshold situations--feelings of inadequacy, especially those linked with losses of objects and love, can no longer be warded off by delusions of grandeur or their projections. On the other hand, the "sanatorium effect" seems to have an influence upon the stabilization of this defence mechanism.