SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE IN CATATONIA - SYST EMATIC INVESTIGATIONS IN 24CATATONIC PATIENTS

Catatonic patients are often not able to communicate their subjective experiences behind their ''fassade of immobility''. Therefore we retro spectively (3 weeks later) investigated subjective experiences in 24 c atatonic patients with a self-assessment-scale especially for catatoni a developed by us. Our results showed that catatonic patients subjecti vely experience less their altered movements but rather cognitive, i.e . ambivalence, or affective, i.e. intense emotions which couldn't be c ontrolled, alterations. According to our results we were able to disti nguish an emotive (intense anxiety) from a non-emotive, i.e. cognitive (predominating ambivalence), subtype in catatonia with regard to subj ective experience.