‘Pseudoneurological’ symptoms, dissociation and stress-related psychopathology in healthy young adults

Petr Bob,Jiri Raboch,Petra Selesova,Lubomir Kukla

doi:10.1186/1471-244x-13-149

Abstract

BackgroundSomatoform dissociation is a specific form of dissociation with somatic manifestations represented in the form of ‘pseudoneurological’ symptoms due to disturbances or alterations of normal integrated functions of consciousness, memory or identity mainly related to trauma and other psychological stressors. With respect to the distinction between psychological and somatoform manifestations of dissociation current data suggest a hypothesis to which extent mild manifestations of ‘pseudoneurological’ symptoms in healthy young population may be linked to stress-related psychopathological symptoms or whether these symptoms more likely could be attributed to unexplained somatic factors.MethodsWith this aim we have assessed the relationship between somatoform dissociation and stress-related psychopathology (i.e. anxiety, depression, symptoms of traumatic stress, alexithymia) in a group of 250 healthy non-psychiatric and non-clinical young adults.ResultsResults of this study show that the symptoms of somatoform dissociation are significantly linked to stress-related psychopathology.ConclusionsFindings of this study show that the ‘pseudoneurological’ symptoms may be linked to stress-related psychopathological processes which indicate that also mild levels of stress may influence somatic feelings and may lead to various somatoform dissociative symptoms.

Highlights

Somatoform dissociation is a specific form of dissociation with somatic manifestations represented in the form of ‘pseudoneurological’ symptoms due to disturbances or alterations of normal integrated functions of consciousness, memory or identity mainly related to trauma and other psychological stressors
Somatoform dissociation has been proposed as a concept describing specific forms of dissociative symptoms experienced as somatic disturbances due to alterations of normal integrative functions of consciousness, memory or identity related to stressful experiences [1,2,3,4]
The concept of somatoform dissociation seems to be clinically relevant, the distinction between psychological and somatic forms of dissociation represents a fundamental problem whether dissociative symptoms, reflecting disorders of conscious awareness, are always “psychological” in nature or they may have somatic manifestations mediated by somatization or conversion mechanisms [6,7,8]

Summary

Introduction

Somatoform dissociation is a specific form of dissociation with somatic manifestations represented in the form of ‘pseudoneurological’ symptoms due to disturbances or alterations of normal integrated functions of consciousness, memory or identity mainly related to trauma and other psychological stressors. With respect to brain-mind reductionism that rejects mental causation the problem whether stress and traumatic experiences may cause only psychological or somatic symptoms is still controversial [2,5,6,7,8,9,12] This discussion in principle suggests clinically relevant empirical question and hypothesis whether mild manifestations of pseudoneurological symptoms linked to the concept of somatoform dissociation in general population may be attributed to stress-related psychopathological symptoms. Within this context, in somatically healthy people these symptoms likely cannot be explained by various underlying somatic factors

Methods

Results

Conclusion