Neurological-Psychopathological Transition Symptoms in Schizophrenic Diseases

Abstract

The concept of basic disorders in schizophrenia has been developed on the basis of phenomenological observation and detailed description of the experiences described by the patients and regularly occuring in post-psychotic basic stages, in prodromes, and outpost syndromes. These symptoms are noncharacteristic in the sense of the traditional schizophrenia concepts. Our concept is founded on the hypothesis that these basic symptoms are substrate-close, i.e. that they are evoked by disorders which are caused by the disease. This hypothesis is supported a.o. by the phenomenological relationship of the described symptoms and syndromes with corresponding features in defined, known brain diseases. In the following we shall describe phenomenologically the relationship of certain neurological-psychopathological transition phenomena with symptoms of defined brain diseases. In this way we refer to the descriptions of the self-perception of 202 patients of the Bonn study with postpsychotic persistent basic stages, i.e. so-called pure deficiency syndromes. With the neurological-psychopathological transition symptoms, G. HUBER (1957) has ranked disorders of body sensations, i.e. cenesthesias, motor symptoms and central-vegetative disturbances. The linkage of these symptoms is frequent and typical in the mentioned stages.