Concepts of Schizo-Affective Psychoses

Abstract

After offering a brief survey of some major unresolved contradictions in the field of clinical psychiatry, the author looks over the historical development of syndromatological entities related to the so-called schizo-affective psychoses. These syndromes were described with reference to somatogenic, endogenous, and psychogenic psychoses and as (relatively) distinct entities, respectively. For grasping these syndromes as independent entities it seems to be necessary to take into account a few holistic characteristics and to put aside the ‘mixture model’ while making research diagnostic criteria.