Pennebaker J W
Department of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas 75275, USA.
Toxicol Ind Health. 1994 Jul-Oct;10(4-5):497-511.
The reporting of physical symptoms is influenced to a large degree by psychological processes. Individuals are more likely to notice subtle sensations in environments lacking in stimulation than those demanding external attention. The beliefs or schemas that people hold dictate where and how they attend to their bodies as well. These normal perceptual processes help explain why people are often poor at accurately detecting internal physiological activity. Several individual differences are also related to the symptom reporting process. Females are more likely to base their symptom reports on external situational cues than are males. In addition, individuals with chronic anxiety--those high in Negative Affectivity (NA)--report more symptoms than those low in NA. Finally, individuals, who have had traumatic experiences, either in childhood or within 1-6 months prior to a major symptom reporting episode, tend to be high symptom reporters. Several recommendations are made to help researchers and clinicians distinguish between psychological or perceptual factors with presumed biological effects. One implication of this work is that MCS and allied syndromes should be viewed as both a mental and a physical health problem.
身体症状的报告在很大程度上受到心理过程的影响。与那些需要外部注意力的环境相比，个体在缺乏刺激的环境中更有可能注意到细微的感觉。人们所持有的信念或图式也决定了他们关注身体的部位和方式。这些正常的感知过程有助于解释为什么人们通常不善于准确检测内部生理活动。一些个体差异也与症状报告过程有关。女性比男性更有可能根据外部情境线索来报告症状。此外，患有慢性焦虑症的个体——即消极情感性（NA）得分高的个体——比NA得分低的个体报告更多症状。最后，在童年或在主要症状报告事件发生前1至6个月内有过创伤经历的个体往往是高症状报告者。本文提出了几项建议，以帮助研究人员和临床医生区分具有假定生物学效应的心理或感知因素。这项工作的一个启示是，功能性慢性疼痛综合征（MCS）及相关综合征应被视为心理健康问题和身体健康问题。
