Psychosomatic disturbances in mothers. Historical backgrounds, causes of illness and psychotherapeutic concepts for their treatment

An overview of the research literature on the health of mothers reveals tha t although the number of empirical surveys in German-peaking and English-sp eaking countries has increased during recent years, the current state of re search is nevertheless unsatisfactory. Studies are described in the literat ure which examine the connections between the health of mothers or women an d their social,family and occupational situations. However, the psychodynam ic background of psychosomatic illness has hardly been recognized at all in these studies. Our own clinical experience indicates that psychodynamic co nnections are of importance in the causes of the psychodynamic illness of m others. Thus for some mothers the desire to have children is an attempt to compensate current conflicts that have already existed before pregnancy. In other mothers unsolved neurotic conflicts that have existed within their r elationship with their own parents since childhood are renewed, and the pat ients are unable to cope with them. Considerable deficits exist with regard to the medical care of this clientele. With many mothers outpatient therap ies fail because their children cannot be looked after while they are under going treatment,and the inpatient psychosomatic treatment of the mothers to gether with their children is only rarely possible. Outpatient psychotherap eutic concepts of treatment which could replace inpatient treatment do not exist either in this country or abroad. Considerable deficits exist with re gard to the medical care of this clientele, leading to consequences which c an hardly be assessed for the further development of mothers and children.