Insomnia and Personality Trait

Ham, B J; Kim, L

Abstract

Personality trait in insomniac patients have been a subject of many studies. A number of these studies have used the MMPI and have demonstrated elevated scores on several clinical scales reflecting somatic concerns, somatization, depression, anxiety, worry and social alienation. And it was suggested that insomnia was due to a process of internalization of psychological distress. Another hypothesis about psychological mechanisms has focused upon worry. Excessive and uncontrollable cognitive activity seem to be a characteristic feature of many insomniacs. One author emphasized the role of the dependency need and found a characteristic pattern among insomniacs. The central feature of this pattern is frustration of dependency need. The purpose of this paper was to review possible personality variable that may be predisposing causal factors of insomnia. Several factors are suggested by many studies, but in order to explore their causal importance other experimental and longitudinal studies are needed.