[Personality markers in patients with Sudeck's disease. A psychoanalytic study].

Abstract

We examined 22 patients suffering from reflex sympathetic dystrophy with psychoanalytic interviews. In all 22 patients we found a common psychological structure corresponding to Balint's basic fault (Balint, 1970). For people with this structure the accident that preceded the reflex sympathetic dystrophy and the following pain, immobilisation and need to help are promoting the patient's regression in a specific way ending in the developing of reflex sympathetic dystrophy. The dispair of the patients about their reflex sympathetic dystrophy expresses unsolved fears of early childhood.