Abstract
Study of social bonds suggest a causative role for their deficiency in the oetiology of non-psychotic emotional illness. The literature suggests that marital maladjustment is associated with certain neurotic and psychophysiological disorders; martial maladjustment is one type of deficient social bond which may influence symptom selection and perpetuation in non-psychotic emotional illness. Specific types of marital maladjustment, including lack of marital intimacy, are described as both vulnerability factors and perpetuating variables in specific non-psychotic emotional illnesses.