Psychiatric Studies Of Patients With Hemophilia and Related States

Abstract

Classic hemophilia and Christmas disease are illnesses almost exclusively of males and are manifested primarily by bleeding into the soft tissues and joints.¹ The bleeding tendency is a result of defects in clotting brought about by a deficiency in plasma antihemophilic factor (AHF, factor VIII) in classic hemophilia, and Christmas factor (plasma thromboplastin component, factor IX) in Christmas disease. The defects are of genetic origin passed from carrier mother to recipient son. Obviously, hemophilia and Christmas disease are organic, and as late as 1955 one author spoke of hemophilia as a disease with the least likely psychosomatic component.² Nonetheless, several investigators have raised the question whether episodes of bleeding in some cases may not be related to preceding emotional stress.^3-5 The possibility that abnormal bleeding might be induced or aggravated by emotional tensions has been noted in a previous study from this hospital. Autoerythrocyte sensitization is a