Headache, quality of attachment and mentalization: A study of psychological dynamics with Sylvie's case

Around fifteen per cent of the general population suffers from headaches. A lot of medical and psychological researches have raised the links between headaches and genetic, depression, anxiety, perceived stress and insecure attachment. The headache group has statistically significant higher percentage of subjects with an insecure attachment compared to the general population. Otherwise, literature shows links between insecure attachment and mentalization. Based on these concepts, we propose an original approach of headache. We assume that a fearful insecure attachment is correlated with low mentalization process, factor influencing headache. We report a representative clinical case of headache patients we meet during our research in a University Hospital. This case is marked with difficulties in early relations, uncertain mentalization faculties and resort to activities. (C) 2017 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.