[Nosography of neuroses. 7. Relation between neurotic syndromes and the spasmophilic syndrome]

The investigators have examined the literature dealing with the psychic symptomatology that generally accompanies tetanic and spasmophilic phenomena, particularly the psychic and characterological substratum of patients affected by such symptoms. By focusing their inquiry on the spasmophilic symptoms displayed by neurotic patients, rather than on the psychic disturbances of patients with spasmophilic symptoms, the following considerations emerge: The widely held view that psychic disturbances in spasmophilic patients can be fitted into the classic picture of asthenic, anxious or depressive disorders is not tenable. The erethistic syndrome with its characteristics of generalized irritability and hyperexcitability, described by us in 1966, is the one most frequently exhibiting spasmophilic symptoms. Therefore, nervous erethism encompasses the most important characteristics of erethistic neurosis as well as of spasmophilia. A connection between the psychological and biological aspects of neurotic conditions is again foreseeable, especially in the light of recent discoveries on normocalcemic spasmophilia. In conclusion, it is intriguing to speculate that the neuropsychic disturbances of spasmophilia fit into the larger conception of nervous erethism and that the psychic and somatic phenomena of both have the same biological origin.