THE IDENTIFICATION AND MEASUREMENT OF THE PSYCHONEUROSES IN MEDICAL PRACTICE

A portable measuring device is proposed which would identify and characterize the psychoneurotic patient with a minimum use of the time consuming interview technic that is conventional in the psychiatric approach.

Abstract

Many a medical man has wished for an easily applicable measuring device which would identify and characterize the psychoneurotic patient with a minimum use of the time consuming interview technic that is conventional in the psychiatric approach. One may not desire to deal with the psychoneuroses in one's practice, but the physician or surgeon is indeed insensitive to the problem or very young in the profession who has not been plagued by his inability appropriately to assess the role of the neurotic element in some of his patients. Without wishing to belabor the topic of the neuroses unnecessarily, because much has been published on it, we should like to remind the reader of a few general points that are pertinent to this report. Competent internists have estimated variously that from 30 to 70 per cent of the ambulatory patients who appear for medical attention come primarily because of one or