Reactive Psychoses

Reactive, or psychogenic, psychoses have been given the most attention in the literature by Scandinavian investigators. We defined diagnostic criteria for reactive psychoses emphasizing differences with manic-depressive psychoses and schizophrenia. Forty Danish probands were selected and family history data was obtained by personal interview and record review. In order to compare our results with other investigations, we age corrected family history data. Siblings of reactive probands were found to have significantly more reactive psychoses than siblings of manic-depressives or schizophrenics, and significantly less schizophrenia than siblings of schizophrenics. Although there was some genetic overlap with manic-depressive psychosis, we believe that the findings are sufficiently distinct to warrant the separate diagnostic category of reactive psychoses.