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Schizophrenia Is a Misdiagnosis pp 1–20Cite as

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Abstract

In 1976, Professor Tom Szasz, a noted psychiatrist, published a controversial, if not heretical, article in the British Journal of Psychiatry in which he said, “There is, in short, no such thing as schizophrenia.” In 1976, the current author was a resident in psychiatry and was appalled at Szasz’s ideas because the esteemed professors at Duke thoroughly embraced the validity of schizophrenia and so, at that time, did this author. The curriculum, governed by the teachings of Kraepelin, Bleuler, and Schneider, fully accepted the Kraepelinian dichotomy, that is, the idea that schizophrenia is a disease distinct from mood disorders. Schizophrenia was taught as the “disorder of thought,” while the affective or mood disorders were “disorders of the emotions,” and there was no overlap. Schizophrenia was to be diagnosed in the presence of primary or functional psychosis and/or chronic dysfunctionality regardless of the presence of mood symptoms. Considerably more diagnostic weight was placed on psychotic than mood symptoms. While initially a strong proponent of schizophrenia and the Kraepelinian dichotomy for some 15 years between medical school and a fellowship, as this author coauthored a paper based on results from patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, there are now doubts about the validity of the diagnoses of schizophrenia in the patients from the 1980 publication (Lake et al. 1980).

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  1. Department Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Kansas, School of Medicine, Kansas City, KS, 66160-7341, USA

    C. Raymond Lake M.D., Ph.D. (Professor Emeritus)

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  1. C. Raymond Lake M.D., Ph.D.
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Correspondence to C. Raymond Lake M.D., Ph.D. .

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Lake, C.R. (2012). Overview. In: Schizophrenia Is a Misdiagnosis. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-1870-2_1

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