Essential hypertension: A psycho-somatic feature or a psycho-somatic disease? A differential analysis of cases in terms of search activity concept

The psychosomatic mechanism and the causative psychological factors of pathological hypertension and of the physiological hypertensive reaction have so far not been differentiated etiologically. In an experiment, two groups of patients were studied. In group 1, emotional stress was followed by longer delta sleep, in group 2 by REM sleep. In both groups, stress led to a rise of arterial pressure, but in group 1 this was due to increase of general peripheral vascular resistance with a relative drop of cardiac output and minute volume. In group 2, the rise resulted from increased cardiac output with some decrease of peripheral vascular resistance. On the basis of the psychological factors of search activity (all activities intended to change situations) and of renunciation of search, and their links with psychosomatic disease in animals (predominance of renunciation of search), the authors conclude that the results of the experiment are to be attributed to these two psychological factors. Both factors may contribute to a general theoretic concept of psychosomatic disease; reference is made in this respect to Ammon's theory of constructive c.q. deficient aggression and their role in psychosomatic disease.