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Dementia praecox oder Gruppe der Schizophrenien
Extremely complete discussion of the current knowledge and theories on Schizophrenia up to the late 1940's by highly respected researchers in the field.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1966
About the author
Eugen Bleuler
97 books24 followersPaul Eugen Bleuler (April 30, 1857 – July 15, 1939) was a Swiss psychiatrist most notable for his contributions to the understanding of mental illness and for coining the terms "schizophrenia", "schizoid", "autism", and what Sigmund Freud called "Bleuler's happily chosen term ambivalence".
Bleuler was born in Zollikon, a big town near Zürich in Switzerland, to Johann Rudolf Bleuler, a wealthy farmer, and Pauline Bleuler-Bleuler. He studied medicine in Zürich and following his graduation in 1881 he worked as a medical assistant to Gottlieb Burckhardt at the Waldau Psychiatric Clinic in Bern. Leaving this post in 1884 he spent one year on medical study trips to Jean-Martin Charcot in Paris, to Bernhard von Gudden in Munich and to London. Thereafter he returned to Zürich to take a post as an intern at the Burghölzli, a university hospital.
In 1886 Bleuler became the director of a psychiatric clinic at Rheinau, a hospital located in an old monastery on an island in the Rhine. It was noted at the time for being backward, and Bleuler set about improving conditions for the patients resident there.
Bleuler returned to the Burghölzli in 1898 where he was appointed director.
Following his interest in hypnotism, especially in its "introspective" variant, Bleuler became interested in Sigmund Freud's work, favorably reviewing Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud's Studies on Hysteria. Like Freud, Bleuler believed that complex mental processes could be unconscious. He encouraged his staff at the Burghölzli to study unconscious and psychotic mental phenomena. Influenced by Bleuler, Carl Jung and Franz Riklin used word association tests to integrate Freud's theory of repression with empirical psychological findings. As a series of letters demonstrates (published in English in 2003), Bleuler performed from 1905 a self-analysis with Freud.
He found Freud's movement to be over-dogmatic and resigned from the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1911, writing to Freud that "this 'all or nothing' is in my opinion necessary for religious communities and useful for political parties...but for science I consider it harmful". Bleuler remained interested in Freud's work, citing him favourably, for example, in his often reprinted Textbook of Psychiatry (1916).
Bleuler also explored the concept of moral idiocy, and the relationship between neurosis and alcoholism. He followed Freud in seeing sexuality as a potent influence upon anxiety, pondered on the origins of the sense of guilt, and studied the process of what he termed switching (the affective shift from love to hate, for example).
Bleuler was known for his clinical observation and willingness to let symptoms speak for themselves, as well as for his skilful expository writings.
Bleuler was born in Zollikon, a big town near Zürich in Switzerland, to Johann Rudolf Bleuler, a wealthy farmer, and Pauline Bleuler-Bleuler. He studied medicine in Zürich and following his graduation in 1881 he worked as a medical assistant to Gottlieb Burckhardt at the Waldau Psychiatric Clinic in Bern. Leaving this post in 1884 he spent one year on medical study trips to Jean-Martin Charcot in Paris, to Bernhard von Gudden in Munich and to London. Thereafter he returned to Zürich to take a post as an intern at the Burghölzli, a university hospital.
In 1886 Bleuler became the director of a psychiatric clinic at Rheinau, a hospital located in an old monastery on an island in the Rhine. It was noted at the time for being backward, and Bleuler set about improving conditions for the patients resident there.
Bleuler returned to the Burghölzli in 1898 where he was appointed director.
Following his interest in hypnotism, especially in its "introspective" variant, Bleuler became interested in Sigmund Freud's work, favorably reviewing Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud's Studies on Hysteria. Like Freud, Bleuler believed that complex mental processes could be unconscious. He encouraged his staff at the Burghölzli to study unconscious and psychotic mental phenomena. Influenced by Bleuler, Carl Jung and Franz Riklin used word association tests to integrate Freud's theory of repression with empirical psychological findings. As a series of letters demonstrates (published in English in 2003), Bleuler performed from 1905 a self-analysis with Freud.
He found Freud's movement to be over-dogmatic and resigned from the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1911, writing to Freud that "this 'all or nothing' is in my opinion necessary for religious communities and useful for political parties...but for science I consider it harmful". Bleuler remained interested in Freud's work, citing him favourably, for example, in his often reprinted Textbook of Psychiatry (1916).
Bleuler also explored the concept of moral idiocy, and the relationship between neurosis and alcoholism. He followed Freud in seeing sexuality as a potent influence upon anxiety, pondered on the origins of the sense of guilt, and studied the process of what he termed switching (the affective shift from love to hate, for example).
Bleuler was known for his clinical observation and willingness to let symptoms speak for themselves, as well as for his skilful expository writings.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 21, 2020
"Our literature is replete with complaints about the chaotic state of the systematics of psychoses and every psychiatrist knows that it is impossible to come to any common understanding on the basis of the old diagnostic labels. ... Thus, not even the masters of science can make themselves understood on the basis of the old concepts and with many patients the number of diagnoses made equals the number of institutions they have been too. ... Errors are the greatest obstacles to the progress of science; to correct such errors is of more practical value than to achieve new knowledge. We have here eliminated chaos of terms behind which useful concepts of disease were mistakenly sought; we have eliminated a veritable forest of boundary posts, not one of which indicated any natural line of demarcation. ... By the term „dementia praecox“ or „schizophrenia“ we designate a group of psychoses whose course is at times chronic, at times marked by intermittent attacks, and which can stop or retrograde at any stage, but does not permit a full restitutio ad integrum. The disease is characterized by a specific type of alteration of thinking, feeling, and relation to the external world which appears nowhere else in this particular fashion." Eugen Bleuler. Dementia Praecox or the Group of Schizophrenias, 1911–1950.
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