Psychological Factors in the Narcolepsy- Cataplexy Syndrome

renewed interest in the narcolepsy-cataplexy syndrome as a result of an increased aware-ness that psychological factors play an im-portant role in precipitating attacks of narcolepsy, cataplexy, and sleep paralysis. Some psychiatrists have even gone so far as to suggest that the idiopathic condition is fundamentally psychogenic and is closely related to hysteria;18 ' 33 elsewhere Smith31-32 has criticised this viewpoint. In this paper we will examine, in 7 per-sonally observed cases of narcolepsy: (1) the relation between the mental state and the symptomatology, and (2) the results of psychological tests. Unfortunately few cases were available, but narcolepsy is a rare syndrome and most psychiatric accounts have dealt with only 1 or 2. It is notable that out of 7 patients studied, 3 (numbers 1, 2, and 7) were re-ferred specifically because they presented psychiatric problems; the other 4 (number