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One of the most controversial issue concerning chronic insomnia is its association with psychopathology. Many patients tend to present their sleep disturbances as isolated, whereas others admit that they have difficulties in other sectors of their life too. If psychopathology exists in chronic insomnia, it should manifest itself in the form of defensive mechanisms which can be clinically observed. In order to have information concerning this problem, the initial interview of patients with chronic insomnia has been analysed in every details, in order to detect behavioural features and characteristics of verbal expression, indicating that defense mechanisms are working. A group of 100 patients from the specialized consultation for sleep disorders has been studied They were referred by their physicians. The patients with a somatic disease or a psychiatric condition corresponding to a diagnostic on axis I of DSM III-R were not included. The patients with a form of insomnia corresponding to psychophysiological insomnia, idiopathic insomnia or sleep state misperception of the international classification were included in this sample. For all patients except 2 of them, the initial interview was audiovisually recorded. This interview aimed at establishing the clinical features of the disturbance, the psychiatric and somatic condition as well as the history of the trouble and the treatment taken at the time or attempted in the past. After an initial open query: "what seems to be the problem?", a semi-structured interview was conducted to obtain information about nocturnal sleep, daytime condition, dream and parasomnia, the history of the disturbance and the treatment. Anxiety and depression, as well as other psychiatric conditions were systematically investigated. Under these conditions, the patients showed from the very beginning of the interview, noticeable characteristics in their behaviour and verbal expression. Therefore, it is essentially the first 10 minutes of the interview that have been analysed. One exception was regressive weepiness, which usually appeared later in the interview. The audio-visual recording was analysed two times, two months apart, and a number of individual traits have been scored for presence or absence. Only the most obvious traits have been scored. In the behavioural presentation of the patient, detachment, eye avoidance and distant attitude were most commonly observed. Many patients also showed some signs of tension and anxiety. The other traits were smile, immobility of the body posture, incessant movements and tics, bored attitude, mannerism, difficulties to concentrate, retardation or weepiness. The formal characteristics on verbal expression can indicate logorrhea, or in contrast very parcimonious expression, precipitated elocution which makes the patient difficult to understand, or montonous voice. From the point of view of verbal content, the speech is often vague, hesitant, dispersed or superficial, the patient going rapidly from one line to the next one. Some patients have problems to focus on what they want to explain.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)