Psychosomatic Aspects of Chronic Pelvic Pain

Abstract

Three groups of women of different socioeconomic extraction, some with and some without chronic pelvic pain, were studied gynecologically and psychiatrically. Regardless of the presence or absence of organic pelvic pathology, pelvic pain patients showed considerable psychopathology clinically and by psychological testing, mainly mixed character disorders with predominant schizoid features. They usually were eager to undergo hysterectomy. Those who received a hysterectomy generally became pain-free, but often they seemingly substituted for it other symptoms (mostly psychological). Pelvic pain patients of different socioeconomic extraction had similar psychological characteristics. A central conclusion is that chronic pelvic pain appears more closely related to the presence of psychiatric disturbance, which is a constant finding, than to the presence of organic pelvic pathology, which is an inconstant finding.