Psychoanalysts Live Longer
New Study Further Links Mind and Body
By Denise Mann WebMD Medical News
Reviewed by Dr. Jacqueline Brooks
Feb. 2, 2001 -- A new study suggests exactly why Sigmund Freud,
referred to as the father of modern psychoanalysis, may have lived to the
ripe old age of 83 in a time when the average life span was only about 50
years.
A soon-to-be published study in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of The
American Psychoanalytic Association found that psychoanalysts live longer,
on average, than men in the general population and men in other medical
specialities.
"We can say that psychoanalysts have a 44% lower death rate than
medical doctors including psychiatrists and neurologists, and 48%
lower than men in the general population," says the study's author,
Edward H. Jeffery, an independent researcher in Northridge, Calif.
Psychoanalysis is based on the observation that individuals are often
unaware of many of the factors that determine their emotions and behavior.
These 'unconscious' factors may result in unhappiness, troubling
personality traits, difficulties in work or in relationships, or
disturbances in mood and self-esteem. Typically, the patient comes in up
to four or five times a week, lies on a couch, and attempts to say
everything that comes to mind. These conditions permit the emergence of
aspects of the mind that people are not usually immediately aware of.
Analysts and those in analysis hope that all this talk may help
lessen stress, which is known to have a negative effect on the immune
system.
Still, the exact reason for the findings are unclear, says Jeffery.
Perhaps there is something life-extending about talking through
problems and emotions but "another major variable that may account
for the lower mortality in this profession is the careful way in
which psychoanalytic institutes select their candidates for training. They
reject applicants who seem to have serious psychological problems," he
says.
Therefore, psychoanalysts may be mentally healthier than the general
public or even psychiatrists, Jeffery says.
His next step is to try and do a study comparing psychiatrists who
undergo psychoanalysis to psychiatrists who have not and see how the
two groups compare in terms of longevity.
In an editorial slated to accompany the new study, Norman Doidge, MD, a
psychoanalyst at the University of Toronto writes that the new study
"makes us wonder whether this treatment has the power to prolong life."
He adds that a recent German study found that people undergoing
psychoanalysis made one-third less medical visits than those that did not,
and other research found that women with advanced breast cancer who
participated in weekly group therapy sessions extended their survival
rates by 18 months.
"Orchestra conductors live longer than other types of professionals
because they jump around a lot and get exercise, but this doesn't
account for psychoanalysts," says New York psychoanalyst Arnold David
Richards, MD, also the editor of the Journal of the American
Psychoanalytic Association.
"My feeling is that psychoanalysts have all been analyzed and have
the tools to deal with conflict and stress. This is very positive for the
immune system and the other systems of the body that have been implicated
in causing disease," he tells WebMD.
All this talk may spare us from some of the diseases that tend to
kill people early, Richards says.
The new findings "really speak to the mind-body connection and
probably the mediator is through the immune system," says Leon
Hoffman, MD, a New York based child psychoanalyst and the chair of
the American Psychoanalytic Association's committee on public
information.
Studies have shown that people with less stress are less prone to
colds and other illnesses, says Hoffman.
"As we are learning more about the importance of the immune system
and the connection between psychology and biology, this work
highlights the importance of trying to deal with psychological issues and
that they can have a profound effect on physiological health," he says. --
