Abstract
Even under similar varieties of psychological stress, the specific stress-reactive organ differs from one individual to another ; this represents one of the biggest Problems in psychosomatic medicine. In order to delineate the cause of such variation in organ selection, a Stress interview was performed on 60 patients. The experiment provided the following results. (1) With regard to psychosomatic diseases, significantly increased biochemical variables were : free fatty acid in all diseases, gastrin in peptic ulcer and irritable colon, cortisol in irritable colon and urinary noradrenaline in peptic ulcer. (2) Using the psychological tests, the sixty subjects were divided into two groups, psychologically stable and unstable. In the over-all index of variables there were no significant differences between two groups; however, taken individually, the unstable group showed more significant differences than the stable group in terms of specific variables. (3) On the basis of frequency of GSR during the stress interview, subjects were divided into two groups, high GSR and low GSR. No significant differences between two groups were noted. However, on the basis of individual variables, the high GSR group revealed significant increases of gastrin, cortisol, FFA and noradrenaline, while the low GSR group only increases in FFA and adrenaline. (4) Labile hypertension showed the highest increases in blood pressure and heart rates. Normotension, with a family history of hypertension, was more responsive to cardiovascular reactions than normotension without a family history of hypertension. It may be concluded that individual-response-specificity has much to do with the organ-selection problem in psychosomatic disease, and that hereditary factor is important in this specificity.
