Family Research on the Problem of Ulcerative Colitis

Socialization and Psychosomatic Disease: An Empirical Study of the Educational Style of Parents with Psychosomatic Children

“…The results from this study are consistent with the concept of a restrictive socialization in psychosomatic families [7,9,[18][19][20]. Re strictive, confining socialization is defined as not offering to the child the required wide range of interactions [7], According to clini cal experience this restrictiveness can only be seen in part as a reaction of the parents to the somatic illness of the child; it has often been typical of child rearing prior to the onset of the illness.…”

Dyadic Interaction in a Doublebind Situation

“…They did not resort to communicational maneuvers such as disaffirmations, disqualifications and false abstractions. These results bear out Jackson and Yalom's (16) clinical observations on the “restrictiveness,” limited behavior and affective inhibition of these families.…”

Large Bowel Disorders

“…(a) In psychodynamic terms: the 'symbiotic' patients, with their limited capacity to establish friendships with others, so often described in personality studies con cerning ulcerative colitis (4,5,11,13,16), much resemble the here defined alexithymic and thereby psychological defenses (denial, repression) against potentially painful affects and fantasies, may be involved, (b) In developmental terms: failure in the early processes of learning to make connections between words and emotions, leading to an incapacity to verbalize feelings and fantasies, may be suggested by studies of families with children with ulcerative colitis, showing the limited range of interactions of these 'restricted' families (10). (c) In neurophysiological terms: one may view the phenomena as reflecting inadequate connections between limbic system (substrate of emotions) and neocortex (sub strate for language and associations).…”