[Studies on stress in psychiatric patients (author's transl)]

Starting from the consideration that the assumed disturbances of the limbic system in psychiatric patients must lead, among other things, to functional autonomic disorders, the physiological reactions of previously untreated depressive and schizophrenic patients to short-lasting experimental stress situations were compared with those of healthy subjects. Whereas the plasma catecholamine levels and the autonomic functions of healthy subjects were easily foreseeable and reacted adequately to the situation, the two groups of patients showed a high degree of general unspecific activation even, eg in resting situations, associated with a relatively slight reaction to stress situations. How far these findings are of significance in the clarification of therapeutic methods in those patients exposed to increased stress is discussed.