Clinical Presentation and Psychopathology in Chronic Insomnia. I

Abstract

Insomnia is a frequent disorder of sleep, known in different forms. Intrinsic chronic insomnia is the most common of them, and the most difficult to treat. It presents itself without any reasonable cause, maintains itself in otherwise apparently healthy individuals, and the extent of the associated psychopathology is still an open question. The clinical presentation of chronic insomnia has been investigated in a group of 100 patients using the video-recording technique of the first interview. The analysis of data obtained at the level of simple inquiry shows that a significant degree of psychopathology is present in the large majority of these patients. Together with the neurotic nature of this psychopathology, this suggests that the technique developed by Davanloo for short-term dynamic psychotherapy may be applicable in a large number of chronic insomniacs.