[Psychological aspects of contrast obsessions]

The paper presents a clinical-psychological examination of 40 patients with contrast obsessions of homicidal- and suicidal-phobic contents. The cohort of patients was divided into two groups by the prevalence of the possibility to commit either autodestructive and criminal actions (group 1-24 patients) or violence and murder (group 2-16 patients) in clinical picture of contrast phobias with anxious apprehension. It was found that in patients of group 1 pathology of personality presented with disorders of the hysteric-hyperthymic sphere together with features of overanxiety, while in patients of group 2--with disorders of the anancastic-schizoid sphere. Differences between the groups in terms of the objective direction of anxiety were associated with peculiarities of the structure of the personality: in group 1 the choice of the object of anxiety from the individuals of the nearest surrounding or the very patient himself, was determined by diffusion or widening of Ego boundaries and identification of patients with their microsocial environment; in group 2 the choice of such object of the "accidental other" was determined by the fixing, narrowing of Ego boundaries and by separation from the microsocial environment. Chronological direction of the anxiety in group 1 was conditioned by the peculiarities of the imagination function: hypertrophy of fantasy, abundance of the means of the symbolization of intrapsychic experience and emotional style of thinking determined an anticipatory anxiety; while an insufficiency of fantasy, alexythymia and the operational style of thinking in group 2 determined a retrospective anxiety.