DYNAMIC CONCEPTS OF MIGRAINE

Abstract

THE EARLY papers on migraine well recognized the psychical manifestations in the migraine syndrome, but these were considered to be primarily prodromes or effects of the actual attack, being secondary to the vascular storm.¹A few patients were considered to have neurotic tendencies in the general personality structure. Moersch la noted that the migrainous make-up tended to predispose to hysterical disturbances and remarked on its increased susceptibility to depressions at the menopause. But on the whole the formulation that the migrainous person was emotionally and psychologically normal between attacks was widely accepted. When the life histories of migrainous persons were more extensively analyzed, it became more and more evident that the personality structure in migraine played a fundamental etiological role. Touraine and Draper²concluded from their study that migraine was a syndrome comparable to any other neurosis, occurring in a person of special constitutional type, produced by conflict