[Psychopathologic decompensation in paternity and the couvade syndrome]

Paternity, like maternity, provides an occasion for profound modifications of an individual's social role and internal world. Such modifications may be defined as "the job of becoming a parent". The authors examine psychological symptoms that appear at the advent of paternity, with special attention given to acute disorders and the couvade syndrome. Recalling the anthropological meaning of the term "couvade", this syndrome is regarded as a sort of "individual defense rite" from various conflicting elements that are stimulated by paternity. In the majority of these cases, this syndrome, fairly rare on the whole, is considered a "physiological" paternity symptom which through somatic symptoms expresses the father's conflicting drives toward his wife and child. In detail, the authors examine certain cases of acute disorder in which psychopathological symptoms are preceded by a somatic symptomology identifiable as a couvade syndrome. A hypothesis that a connexion exists between the psychosomatic symptomatology of couvade and acute disorders on a neurotic and psychotic level of paternity is formulated, analogous to what is observed in certain psychosomatic illnesses during whose course somatic symptoms alternate with psychotic symptoms.