The Development of Kraepelin’s Concept of Dementia Praecox

Abstract

Psychiatrists in Heidelberg on "Goals and Paths of Clinical Psychiatry," 1 he had been professor of psychiatry in Heidelberg since 1890, where he established a clinical research program to support the development of his new psychiatric nosologic classification. That year, the fifth edition of his textbook 2 was published containing a tentative diagnostic category of Verblödungsprocesse (dementing process). Three years later, the sixth edition of Kraepelin's textbook was published, containing the direct descendent of that category: dementia praecox (DP). [3][4][5] Kraepelin raised key issues about psychiatric nosologic classification:

The polysemous concepts of psychomotricity and catatonia: A European multi-consensus perspective

“…The disassembling-reassembling process which occurred between the 4/5th and the 6th edition of Kraepelin's "Lehrbuch " has had profound consequences. We shall only raise some few points and refer the reader to recent publications for more in-depth historical accounts ( Heckers and Kendler, 2020a ;( Kendler, 2020 ) ( Kendler, 2020a( Kendler, ), 2020bShorter and Fink, 2018 ). Kraepelin states that catatonic features can be observed in all sub-forms of dementia praecox (Kenneth S. Kendler, 2020 ).…”

Theoretical psychology: discursive transformations and continuity in Psychological Research/Psychologische Forschung

“…Close reading is, like other approaches, a technique that attempts to attain the highest level of description. Such close reading of individual texts is a standard form of research within the field of history of psychology (e.g., Hajek, 2015 ; Kendler, 2020 ).…”

Diagnoses in the Psychiatric Hospital of Kerkyra (Corfu) (1838-2000)

“…Kraepelin's dementia praecox from 1893 to 1899, 43 is present as "πρωτογόνος άνοια" (1862-1945, 679 entries). Dementia praecox was first presented in Greece in 1906, by M. Oikonomakis 44,45 and G. Zillanakis.…”