Twelve patients complaining of taste impairment were studied. Three complained of only decreasing taste acuity, while the others complained of both disturbed taste perception and other oral discomforts such as glossal pain, mouth dryness or ill-fitting of the dentures. Physiologic examinations of the pain and taste thresholds and non-stimulated salivary flow rate, and psychosomatic investigation by counseling and psychological (CMI) test were performed with synchronous laboratory tests for anemia and Fe, Zn and Cu deficiencies. In 7 patients who complained of both impaired taste perception and glossal pain, salivary excretion was severely depressed. Their hypogeusia and glossodynia, except for one case, simultaneously improved or disappeared after brief psychotherapy, accompanied by increasing salivary flow rate but no varying of taste thresholds.
A patient with denture neurosis noticed disappearance of dysgeusia (astringent sensation) by wearing “well-fitted dentures”. Two cases were treated with oral administration of iron, and taste perception became normal in 3 weeks. Oral candidasis of the initial stage, puss discharged from the deep gingival pockets, and unknown pathophysiology were suspected to be the causes of the hypogeusia in each another case of the subjects. These 5 cases without psychosomatic problems showed concomitant falling of taste thresholds with recovery of good taste perception. From these results, it was confirmed that taste impairment may be induced by many kinds of pathologic factors including psychosomatic disorders.

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Clinicostatistical study on 66 patients in dental and oral surgical region suffering from depression is reported in this paper. The discussion on the results led us to the next conclusions.
1. Our experiences of remarkable therapeutic effect on many cases by means of administration of anti-depressants suggested the usefulness of the drugs to depressive patients complaining of dental and oral surgical symptoms.
2. The good dentist-patient relationship based on the brief psychotherapy was considered to be fundamental to the treatment of depressive patients and prerequisite to the administration of anti-depressants.
3. The rapid introduce to a psychiatrist was considered to be necessary in cases where anti-depressants were not effective and tendency of suicide was noticeable.
4. In management of the depression of patients complaining of dental and oral surgical symptoms, it was considered essential to assume that the depression overlaid and disfigured the symptoms.

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Temporomandibular dysfunction is basically caused by disharmony of the morphology with the function of the stomatognathic system, which is further attributable to imbalanced mechanical and neuro-physiological relationships between them. Therefore, it is necessary to grasp the mental and somatic factors in treating patients with mandibular dysfunction.
Various psychological tests have been reported as an effective measures for examining the psychosomatic aspect of patients with mandibular dysfunction. However, it is rather difficult to apply these tests for every patient in the clinical practice.
In the present study, palpable muscles on the head and neck as well as the occlusal condition were examined in 18 patients requiring some psychosomatic treatment among 231 patients mainly complaining of so-called mandibular dysfunction. The results were as follows:
1. Patients requiring a psychosomatic treatment were mostly female, and the age concentrated in the forties.
2. As compared with patients having common mandidular dysfunction, those requiring a psychosomatic treatment frequently complained of muscular pain at various parts of the body.
3. As compared with the common patients, the centric occlusion was frequently unstable in the psychosomatic patients.

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The present study concerns the effectiveness of Saibokuto or ethyl loflazepate (Meilax®) in patients with temporomandibular arthrosis and apparently requiring a treatment from the psychological standpoint.
The two cases received Meilax were markedly improved. In addition, no side effect was observed following the administration of Saibokuto or Meilax.

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Psychosomatic medicine in the clinical practice of dentistry and oral surgery emphasizes that all clinicians should take note of all aspects of the patient, from both mental and somatic standpoints. In Japan various diseases have been included in the category of “psychosomatic diseases in dentistry”, but some of them are inappropriately so classified if the term psychosomatic diseases is viewed in a narrow sense; they seem instead to be psychiatric disorders.
In this article, we present a new classification of “psychosomatic diseases in dentistry” and we review concepts of psychosomatic diseases.
Group I. Beliefs of imagined abnormality of the body (abnormal thought contents).
Group II. Abnormal sensations in the absence of confirmatory physical evidence.
Group III-a. Motor disturbances of voluntary muscles.
Group III-b. Functional disturbances in the autonomic nervous system.
Group IV. Physical disorders with organic changes and/or established pathophysiology.
We think that Group IV should be called psychosomatic diseases in a strict sense.

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Hozumi examined quantitatively the relationship between emotional anxiety and the pulse-wave baseline oscillation in both neurotic patients and normals and concluded that the baseline oscillation component of the pulse-wave might be an index of anxiety.
We thus studied patients with dental phobia by referring to his concept.The results are reported with some considerations in this article.
Subjects: 12 patients with dental phobia
(Therapy completed in 10)
10 normal subjects
Method: Autopower spectrum of the subjects'fingertip pulse-wave was used to obtain the ratio of the baseline oscillation component to the pulsation component.Statistical comparisons were performed by using percentages of the baseline oscillation component.
Results:
1.The baseline oscillation component of the dental phobia patients taken at the beginning of therapy tended to be larger than that of the control group.
(t=1.901, df=22, p<0.1)
2.The baseline oscillation component of the experimental group was significantly larger at the beginning than at the end of therapy.
(t=3.086df=9, p<0.02)
3.The baseline oscillation component of the experimental group at the end of therapy showed no difference compared to that of the control group.
(t=1.229, df=20, n.s.)
The above-mentioned results were further confirmed by simultaneously measured SPR, results of the DAS as well as the subjective reports of the subjects.
Therefore the basic oscillation component of the pulse-wave does increase and decrease depending on the degree of fear, suggesting the possibility of being an index of emotional anxiety.

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We report on the case of a 7-year old boy who had a habit of twitching his upper lip despite no physiological cause was indicated by several tests.
Intake interviews of the child as well as of his mother suggested that overprotectiveness might be behind this symptom as well as others that appeared, such as nausea, vomiting and school refusal.
Therefore the child was treated with art therapy in an open therapeutic atmosphere on one hand, and environmental adjustments were accomplished through his mother on the other hand.
Though these symptoms disappeared completely around the 12th session and the therapy terminated on the 15th session, it seems that a family therapy including the patient's father migt have been more appropriate in this case.

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