The Psychoanalytic Approach to Psychosomatics and Eating Disorders The Newsletter of the Psychosomatic Discussion Group of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Abstracts A Further Contribution to the Psychoanalytic Study of Migraine and Psychogenic Headaches. In this paper Melitta Sperling elaborates on her basic formulation regarding psychosomatic illness as it pertains to migraine headache.
Male patients experience premature ejaculation with a preference for oral sexuality.
Sperling also notes that there is evidence of anal-sadism with strong compulsive features. This early psychological configuration prevents these patients from discharging impulses in overt behavior. Indeed, they are not conscious of the impulse. Thus, the psychosomatic patient is not in conflict with objects, but rather with the self, ie, the symptom picture. Sperling addresses the issue of symptom specificity.