Psychosomatic Medicine 23:311-322 (1961)
© 1961 American Psychosomatic Society

Hostility in Verbal Productions and Hypnotic Dreams of Hypertensive Patients

Studies of Groups and Individuals

¹ Department of Psychiatry of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and the Psychosomatic Service of the Cincinnati General Hospital

Quantitative associations can be demonstrated between blood pressure and measurements of hostile content in samples of verbal productions and hypnotic dreams. In comparisons between hypertensive and normotensive groups, and within hypertensive individuals at different times, these tend to support the hypothesis that essential hypertension accompanies inhibited, and only partially expressed, hostile aggressive impulses. However, these experiments do not discount the possibility that the hostile verbal content might be due to elevation of blood pressure, rather than vice versa, or that both might be dependent variables to some other critical factor. Furthermore, the collection of verbal samples by a stranger can be added to the list of stimuli that provoke a rise in blood pressure in hypertensive subjects; the same stimulus situation does not elicit an increase in the blood pressure of nonhypertensive subjects.