Psychosomatics 10: 23-28, 1969
Copyright
© 1969 Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine
Visual Conversion Reaction in Children
I. Diagnosis
RICHARD T. RADA M.D.1,
GEORGE G. MEYER M.D.2, , and
ALEX E. KRILL M.D.3
1 Resident, Department of Psychiatry, University of Chicago Hospital
2 Associate Professor and Chief of Psychiatric Inpatient Service, University of Chicago Hospital
3 Professor, Department of Surgery, University of Chicago Hospital
Twenty children between the ages of 7 and 18 with the ophthalmologic diagnosis of visual conversion reaction were evaluated psychiatrically. The ophthalmologic diagnosis of visual conversion reaction was made on the basis of (1) fluctuating visual acuity, (2) tubular visual fields, and (3) abnormality in dark-adaptation after prolonged testing termed the "exhaustion phenomenon." The patients were a heterogeneous group in regard to age, race, sex, religion and socio-economic status. This study supports the hypothesis that the diagnosis of visual conversion reaction in children does not imply the presence of a hysterical personality. Hysterical personality, although the most frequent characterologic diagnosis, was found in only seven cases (35 percent). Psychiatric symptomatic and characterologic diagnosis showed a wide range of personality types and disorders.
The data suggests the following tentative conclusions: (1) A wide variety of predisposing factors, biologic, intra-psychic, and environmental, influence the development of visual conversion reaction, and (2) visual conversion reaction represents the use of the eye as a target organ for the expression of a variety of nonspecific conflicts rather than for the expression only of a specific type of conflict.
