Psychological Studies on Patients With Multiple Sclerosis

IN A RECENT publication1one of us (M.H.) has reported briefly on psychological testing of 61 patients with multiple sclerosis. In this study there were used as controls patients equally handicapped physically with tabes, poliomyelitis or Parkinsonism2; persons with neurotic and psychosomatic difficulties, and persons free from symptoms at the time of testing, designated for the sake of simplicity as "normal." Summarizing the findings from this previous study, we may say that while no typical stereotyped or uniform personality picture of the patients with multiple sclerosis emerged, such as has been found by several investigators in cases of brain damage,3nonetheless in every test used there were some items which differentiated this experimental group from the controls. Expressed in general terms, these findings could be epitomized as showing in the multiple sclerosis patients an overemphasis of dependency needs, a virtually complete absence of body-centered anxiety, a minimum