Psychosomatic Medicine 8:28-35 (1946)
© 1946 American Psychosomatic Society

Narcolepsy as a Psychogenic Symptom

1. A case is presented for the purpose of demonstrating unusual psychogenic factors in a case of narcolepsy.

2. Catharsis, in the sense of disclosing memories both forgotten and voluntarily withheld, appears to have been effective in relieving the patient of her main symptom, narcolepsy.

3. Based on these findings, psychogenic narcolepsy is interpreted as a means of unconsciously satisfying forbidden wishes without experiencing conscious guilt and simultaneously as a punishment for these wishes. The disappearance of the narcolepsy through psychotherapy induced a conscious sense of guilt.

4. One of the authors (L. A. S.) suggests that the mechanism of conversion which is responsible for the hysterical symptoms of functional hemiparesis and functional vomiting is likewise responsible for the narcolepsy.

Note:
Presented briefly before the Section of Neurology and Psychiatry of the N. Y. Academy of Medicine Feb. 8, 1944 and in full before the Society for Psychotherapy and Psychopathology, Nov. 30, 1944.