The Treatment of “Nervous Diarrhoea” and Other Conditioned Autonomic Disorders by Desensitization

Abstract

Disturbance of functions controlled by the autonomic nervous system may be due to changes in the emotional state, and are part of normal reactions to stress. Their general occurrence is reflected in phrases like “it makes me sick” and “to sweat with fear”. In some groups of people these autonomic disturbances are not confined to stressful situations but become more general and frequent and so more disabling. For instance, in patients with affective illnesses, symptoms of autonomic origin are common and are relieved by successful treatment of the underlying illness. Again, there is a group of patients who complain of these symptoms but who show little affective disorder. In these patients the autonomic symptoms are provoked by specific situations which are not particularly stressful to normal people, e.g. nausea occurs when eating in company or diarrhoea when travelling; outside these specific situations symptoms do not occur. Although these patients may complain of some anxiety, the physical symptom is the major complaint and the anxiety is often attributed to this.