[Clinical features of the syndrome of hysterical hypochondriasis]

The author studied 40 patients with the syndrome of hysterical hypochondria (27 of them were with slowly progressive schizophrenia), where the structure of the clinical picture was composed of hysterical and anxious-phobic disturbances of a hypochondriacal content, as well as of affective disorders appearing in the process of the disease. In nonprogressive states (psychopathy and pseudopsychopathy) there was an insignificant modification of the syndrome with a reduction of the vegetative and phobic symptomatology. A progressive development of the schizophrenic process was accompanied by modification of the whole syndrome and complication of it by an adjoinment of cenesthopathy. The disease in such cases was accompanied by mild negative personality changes (mainly within the framework of psychopathlike disturbances of the asthenic pole).