Somatic preoccupations and their effect on the colon

The psychic reevocation of disturbance of the colon or disturbances of other body districts not felt by the patient at the time facilitates the accentuation of colon motility or tone, leading to the exacerbation of the pathogenetic premises of the disturbances complained of. The colonmetrographic findings are instructive in this respect. Direct functional disturbance of various districts is also suggested, and the pathology of such forms in psychosomatically oriented patients is described. Such orientation takes the form of a ready translation of ideas into rather diffuse somatic changes that are partly aspecific, due to the predominance of response mechanisms that are more physiological than psychological. The picture is one of a primordial reaction to difficulties and problems, coupled with increased stress, sometimes to the points of vegetative or motor storms, in the expectation of help from outside, such help being represented in the past by intervention on the part of the mother.