Where did the word schizophrenia come from?
25422045#6
The word "schizophrenia"—which translates roughly as "splitting of the mind" and comes from the Greek roots "schizein" (σχίζειν, "to split") and "phrēn", "phren-" (φρήν, φρεν-, "mind")—was coined by Eugen Bleuler in 1908 and was intended to describe the separation of function between personality, thinking, memory, and perception. Bleuler described the main symptoms as four "A"'s: flattened "Affect", "Autism", impaired "Association" of ideas and "Ambivalence". Bleuler realized that the illness was not a dementia as some of his patients improved rather than deteriorated and hence proposed the term "schizophrenia" instead. However, many at the time did not accept that splitting or dissociation was an appropriate description, and the term would later have more significance as a source of confusion and social stigma than scientific meaning.
History of schizophrenia
25358361#10
"From the perspective of linguistics we see that the reified categories (e.g. mental illness, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder) are abstractions defined by clusters of what we call “symptoms.” Schizophrenia is defined as the presence of audio hallucinations (or other “thought disorders”) in the absence of a “mood disorder.” You can even throw in other correlates like “negative symptoms”, PET scans, response to medications, etc. The issue of the DSM's poor reliability and validity aside (Caplan, 1995; Sparks, Duncan, & Miller, 2005), the term “schizophrenia” is a word used to communicate the presence of these “symptoms.” The various human manifestations of thought, feeling, and behavior (aka “symptoms”) exist like the chair you are sitting on as you read this exists. But the next level of abstraction, the word “schizophrenia”, and the next, “mental illness”, only exist through consensus and only persist by convention. Even if the correlations of defining symptoms was perfect (which it is far from), in light of the linguistic paradigm we have to ask ourselves whether using a pathologizing, deficit-based vocabulary is useful in helping people improve the quality of their lives."
Social construction of schizophrenia
27790#48
The history of schizophrenia is complex and does not lend itself easily to a linear narrative. Accounts of a schizophrenia-like syndrome are thought to be rare in historical records before the 19th century, although reports of irrational, unintelligible, or uncontrolled behavior were common. A detailed case report in 1797 concerning James Tilly Matthews, and accounts by Philippe Pinel published in 1809, are often regarded as the earliest cases of the illness in the medical and psychiatric literature. The Latinized term "dementia praecox" was first used by German alienist Heinrich Schule in 1886 and then in 1891 by Arnold Pick in a case report of a psychotic disorder (hebephrenia). In 1893 Emil Kraepelin borrowed the term from Schule and Pick and in 1899 introduced a broad new distinction in the classification of mental disorders between "dementia praecox" and mood disorder (termed manic depression and including both unipolar and bipolar depression). Kraepelin believed that "dementia praecox" was probably caused by a long-term, smouldering systemic or "whole body" disease process that affected many organs and peripheral nerves in the body but which affected the brain after puberty in a final decisive cascade. His use of the term "praecox" distinguished it from other forms of dementia such as Alzheimer's disease which typically occur later in life. It is sometimes argued that the use of the term "démence précoce" in 1852 by the French physician Bénédict Morel constitutes the medical discovery of schizophrenia. This account ignores the fact that there is little to connect Morel's descriptive use of the term and the independent development of the "dementia praecox" disease concept at the end of the nineteenth century.
The word "schizophrenia"—which translates roughly as "splitting of the mind" and comes from the Greek roots "schizein" (σχίζειν, "to split") and "phrēn", "phren-" (φρήν, φρεν-, "mind")—was coined by Eugen Bleuler in 1908 and was intended to describe the separation of function between personality, thinking, memory, and perception. American and British interpretations of Bleuler led to the claim that he described its main symptoms as four "A"s: flattened "affect", "autism", impaired "association" of ideas, and "ambivalence". Bleuler realized that the illness was "not" a dementia, as some of his patients improved rather than deteriorated, and thus proposed the term schizophrenia instead. Treatment was revolutionized in the mid-1950s with the development and introduction of chlorpromazine.
Schizophrenia
11304934#83
In 1956, Gregory Bateson and his colleagues Paul Watzlawick, Donald Jackson, and Jay Haley articulated a theory of schizophrenia, related to Laing's work, as stemming from double bind situations where a person receives different or contradictory messages. Madness was therefore an expression of this distress and should be valued as a cathartic and transformative experience. In the books "Schizophrenia and the Family" and "The Origin and Treatment of Schizophrenic Disorders" Lidz and his colleagues explain their belief that parental behaviour can result in mental illness in children. Arieti's "Interpretation of Schizophrenia" won the 1975 scientific National Book Award in the United States.
Causes of schizophrenia
25422045#0
The word "schizophrenia" was coined by the Swiss psychiatrist and eugenicist Eugen Bleuler in 1908, and was intended to describe the separation of function between personality, thinking, memory, and perception. He formally introduced the term on 24 April 1908 in a lecture given at a psychiatric conference in Berlin and in a publication that same year. Bleuler later expanded his new disease concept into a monograph in 1911, which was finally translated into English in 1950.
History of schizophrenia
25358361#25
The terms "schizophrenia" and "autism" originated from the works of Eugen Bleuler (1857–1939) as different aspects of the same diagnostic condition. Bleuler was a contemporary of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Prior to Bleuler's interventions schizophrenia was referred to as dementia praecox (early insanity) and perceived as a single disorder. Schizophrenia is sometimes also referred to as hebephrenia, stemming in etymology from the Greek god Hebe who was associated with adolescence and as it was thought the onset of schizophrenia came at adolescence. It is generally acknowledged that schizophrenia can have early onset and late onset.
Social construction of schizophrenia
11304934#84
The concept of schizophrenia as a result of civilization has been developed further by psychologist Julian Jaynes in his 1976 book "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind"; he proposed that until the beginning of historic times, schizophrenia or a similar condition was the normal state of human consciousness. This would take the form of a "bicameral mind" where a normal state of low affect, suitable for routine activities, would be interrupted in moments of crisis by "mysterious voices" giving instructions, which early people characterized as interventions from the gods. Researchers into shamanism have speculated that in some cultures schizophrenia or related conditions (such as schizotypal personality disorder) may predispose an individual to becoming a shaman; the experience of having access to multiple realities is not uncommon in schizophrenia, and is a core experience in many shamanic traditions. Equally, the shaman may have the skill to bring on and direct some of the altered states of consciousness psychiatrists label as illness. Psychohistorians, on the other hand, accept the psychiatric diagnoses. However, unlike the current medical model of mental disorders they may argue that poor parenting in tribal societies causes the shaman's schizoid personalities. Commentators such as Paul Kurtz and others have endorsed the idea that major religious figures experienced psychosis, heard voices and displayed delusions of grandeur.
Causes of schizophrenia
25#61
The New Latin word "autismus" (English translation "autism") was coined by the Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler in 1910 as he was defining symptoms of schizophrenia. He derived it from the Greek word "autós" (αὐτός, meaning "self"), and used it to mean morbid self-admiration, referring to "autistic withdrawal of the patient to his fantasies, against which any influence from outside becomes an intolerable disturbance". A Soviet child psychiatrist, Grunya Sukhareva, described a similar syndrome that was published in Russian in 1925, and in German in 1926.
Autism
87851#4
The root word for "stoat" is likely either the Dutch word ("naughty") or the Gothic word (, "to push"). According to John Guillim, in his "Display of Heraldrie", the word "ermine" is likely derived from Armenia, the nation where it was thought the species originated, though other authors have linked it to the Norman French from the Teutonic (Anglo-Saxon ). This seems to come from the Lithuanian word . In Ireland (where the least weasel does not occur), the stoat is referred to as a weasel, while in North America it is called a short-tailed weasel. A male stoat is called a "dog", "hob" or "jack", while a female is called a "jill". The collective noun for stoats is either "gang" or "pack".
Stoat
39653#47
In 1908, Eugen Bleuler introduced the term ""schizophrenia"" to represent a revised disease concept for Emil Kraepelin's "dementia praecox." Whereas Kraepelin's natural disease entity was anchored in the metaphor of progressive deterioration and mental weakness and defect, Bleuler offered a reinterpretation based on dissociation or "splitting' ("Spaltung") and widely broadened the inclusion criteria for the diagnosis. A review of the "Index medicus" from 1903 through 1978 showed a dramatic decline in the number of reports of multiple personality after the diagnosis of schizophrenia became popular, especially in the United States. The rise of the broad diagnostic category of dementia praecox has also been posited in the disappearance of "hysteria" (the usual diagnostic designation for cases of multiple personalities) by 1910. A number of factors helped create a large climate of skepticism and disbelief; paralleling the increased suspicion of DID was the decline of interest in dissociation as a laboratory and clinical phenomenon.
Dissociative identity disorder