Schizophrenia
The word Schizophrenia comes from the Greek word skhizein meaning "to split" and the Greek word Phrenos (phren) meaning "diaphragm, heart, mind". In 1910, the word “Schizophrenia was coined by the Swiss psychiatrist, Eugen Bleuler (1857-1939). Bleuler had intended the term to refer to the dissociation or ‘loosening’ of thoughts and feelings that he had found to be a prominent feature of the illness.
The term ‘schizophrenia’ has led to much confusion about the nature of the illness, but Bleuler had intended it to replace the older, even more misleading term of ‘dementia praecox’ (‘dementia of early life’). This older term had been championed by the eminent German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin, who mistakenly believed that the illness only occurred in young people and that it inevitably led to mental deterioration. Bleuler disagreed on both counts and, in an attempt to clarify matters, changed the name of the illness to ‘schizophrenia’. Bleuler believed that, contrary to mental deterioration, schizophrenia led to a heightened consciousness of memories and experiences.
Although Kraepelin had some mistaken beliefs about the nature of Schizophrenia, he was the first person to distinguish the illness from other forms of psychosis, and in particular from the ‘affective psychoses’ that occur in mood disorders such depression and manic-depressive illness (bipolar affective disorder).
Kraepelin first isolated schizophrenia from other forms of psychosis in 1887, but this is not to say that schizophrenia—or ‘dementia praecox’, as he called it—had not existed long before Kraepelin’s day. The oldest available description of an illness closely resembling schizophrenia can be found in the Ebers papyrus, which dates back to the Egypt of 1550 BC. And archaeological discoveries of Stone Age skulls with burr holes drilled into them (presumably to release ‘evil spirits’) have led to speculation that schizophrenia is as old as mankind itself.
It is a mental disorder that generally
The term ‘schizophrenia’ has led to much confusion about the nature of the illness, but Bleuler had intended it to replace the older, even more misleading term of ‘dementia praecox’ (‘dementia of early life’). This older term had been championed by the eminent German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin, who mistakenly believed that the illness only occurred in young people and that it inevitably led to mental deterioration. Bleuler disagreed on both counts and, in an attempt to clarify matters, changed the name of the illness to ‘schizophrenia’. Bleuler believed that, contrary to mental deterioration, schizophrenia led to a heightened consciousness of memories and experiences.
Although Kraepelin had some mistaken beliefs about the nature of Schizophrenia, he was the first person to distinguish the illness from other forms of psychosis, and in particular from the ‘affective psychoses’ that occur in mood disorders such depression and manic-depressive illness (bipolar affective disorder).
Kraepelin first isolated schizophrenia from other forms of psychosis in 1887, but this is not to say that schizophrenia—or ‘dementia praecox’, as he called it—had not existed long before Kraepelin’s day. The oldest available description of an illness closely resembling schizophrenia can be found in the Ebers papyrus, which dates back to the Egypt of 1550 BC. And archaeological discoveries of Stone Age skulls with burr holes drilled into them (presumably to release ‘evil spirits’) have led to speculation that schizophrenia is as old as mankind itself.
It is a mental disorder that generally