2003 Volume 43 Issue 9 Pages 599-607
Cenesthopathy is characterized by bizarre or strange sensations at various parts of the body, and it is not rare at the oral area (oral cenesthopathy). In such cases, the patients seek dentists for medical care, but will mostly fail to find any causes of the disease. It is also difficult for psychiatric treatments to reduce their sufferings from various symptoms. Although the relationships between cenesthopathy and some psychological factors have often been pointed out, there have not been the systematic researches in this field yet. In this study 13 cases of oral cenesthopathy (1 male, 12 females) were examined with the use of the Rorschach test, which is one of the well-known projective methods for exploring personality. The results were as follows. Eight of 13 cases were positive for the CDI (Coping Deficit Index), which indicates social immaturity or ineptness. They are limited in social skills and are vulnerable to problems in coping with the requirements of everyday living, and therefore more vulnerable to losing control of problems than others. Moreover, almost all of them are unable to express proper feelings, because of their poor emotional control. As to the cognitive activities, the limited information processing is likely to lead to their dysfunction in translating stimuli and it will be reflected into problems in reality testing. But no evidence was found to identify those problems in ideational clarity or bizarre thinking.
