Simple schizophrenia: Personality development or a condition?

Abstract

The term «simple schizophrenia» was firstly used in the early twentieth century to designate a formal va riety of schizophrenia. Without a precise definition the concept progressively looses its clinical significance as a subtype of schizophrenia and becomes paradoxically the representation of the pure fundamental disorder. The intersection of three clinical psychopathology categories –psychoses, endogenity and process– has historically determined the meaning of «simple schizophrenia». The recent exclusion of the term «simple schizophrenia» from the diagnostic manuals and its taxonomical realignment as a personality disorder are the result of the nosological approach. The review of the concept of «simple schizophrenia» allow us to question the viability of a unique definition of clinical objects and to point out the configurating effect of theory on psychiatric taxonomy.