Psychotherapeutic examination of patients with suspected chronic solvent intoxication. An overview

A group of 13 patients, most of them house or industrial painters with strong evidence of chronic solvent intoxication were given psychotherapy, with a view to ascertaining whether psychological factors may have contributed to the signs and symptoms that had persisted after the acute manifestations had either diminished or ceased altogether. All the patients were found to have experienced severe psychic traumata during their first year of life-the preverbal period. This had resulted in defective development of language, which was reflected in a lack of words for expressing emotions; instead these were expressed nonverbally as somatic symptoms. The results of the study indicate unequivocally that in none of the 13 patients were the symptoms due to the toxic effect of solvents, all of them having a psychological rather than a somatic causation. After an analysis of the symptoms by means of an established psychotherapeutic method they diminished in severity and a number of the patients recovered completely.