Growing Old the Outpatient Way
L. WILLIAM EARLEY M.D.1, and
OTTO VON MERING PH.D.2
1 Professor of psychiatry, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, 3811 O'Hara St., Pittsburgh, Pa. 15213
2 Professor of anthropology, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, 3811 O'Hara St., Pittsburgh, Pa. 15213
The authors describe a group of patients in an outpatient clinic who present many diffuse illness symptoms and who pass from one physician to another over a long period of time without noticeable progress. By so doing, such patients manage to create a secondary world in which they play out a great number of problems they have projected.
