The Development of Neurosis in the Wives of Neurotic Men Part I. Symptomatology and Personality

Several researchers, among them Penrose (1944), Slater and Woodside (1951), Pond et al. (1963), Kreitman (1962, 1968) and others, have found that psychiatric disturbance occurs in both members of marital pairs more often than can be expected by chance. It appears that symptoms in the spouse are more evident when it is the husband who is the patient, and that neurosis rather than psychosis is associated with higher levels of disturbance in the spouse (Kreitman, 1962, 1964).