Visual training as a treatment for visual conversion reaction.

摘要

This experimental study was designed to test the hypothesis that a specific treatment, visual training, is effective for visual conversion reaction.;Visual conversion reaction is a conversion reaction; characterized by a decrease in visual acuity, constricted and tubular visual fields, without organic or refractive etiology.;In this study visual training was prescribed for ten subjects ages 8--14 with visual conversion reaction. Each of the subjects completed the regimen of visual training and in each instance visual acuity improved significantly. Visual fields enlarged and were no longer tubular. Emotional stress measured with the Koppitz Emotional Indicator for Human Figure Drawings of children decreased in eight of the subjects. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).;Conversion reaction is an abnormal psychological defense mechanism that some individuals use in response to anxiety or stress. It is a hysterical neurosis that transforms anxiety into a dysfunction of the special senses or voluntary nervous system causing such symptoms as visual disability, deafness, paralysis, etc.