Psychosomatic Medicine 15:312-327 (1953)
© 1953 American Psychosomatic Society

Emotions and Hydrochloric Acid Secretion during Psychoanalytic Hours

¹ Department of Psychiatry, Yale University Medical School, and Institute of Human Relations, Yale University

This paper illustrates a crude first approximation of what appears to be a fruitful method for investigating differential relationships between anxiety, oral-dependency needs, and hostility and hydrochloric acid secretion during psychoanalytical and psychotherapeutic hours. In one patient studied systematically, hydrochloric acid secretion increased with anxiety regardless of its origin-sexual, hostile, or passive-dependent wishes, ideation, or motives. These results are compatible with those of studies on dogs, monkeys, and humans when more traditional experimental procedures are followed. The results are not compatible with an oral-dependency hypothesis of peptic ulcer etiology. Possible improvements in the method are noted.