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Relationship Between Deafness and Psychotic Illness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2018

F. Houston  and
A. B. Royse
F. Houston
Affiliation:
De La Pole Hospital, Hull
A. B. Royse
Affiliation:
University College, Hull
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Extract

As Bleuler (1925) pointed out, all our relationships with our human environment are regulated through language. For this, auditory perception is essential, this can only take place if the peripheral auditory mechanism (viz., the tympanic membrane, ossicles, spiral ganglion of Corti and VIIIth nerve) is not diseased. When a person becomes deaf through disease of any of the latter, it does not matter which one of the peripheral mechanisms is involved, the result is always the same. Often not knowing what his fellow men are saying he becomes doubtful about them: losing auditory contact with them he has to rely on an inner world of auditory memories and images; he misinterprets auditory sense impressions which have been distorted by disease, and incorporates tinnitus caused by such disease into his world of inner phantasy. He projects his inner feelings of inferiority caused by his deafness on to his environment and develops ideas of reference. Systematization soon follows, with active delusions of persecution. If the personality is sufficiently unstable a psychotic illness results.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Journal of Mental Science , Volume 100 , Issue 421 , October 1954 , pp. 990 - 993
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1954 

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References

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