The long-term course of the schizophrenic psychoses

SYSNOPSIS Results of studies of a large number of long-standing schizophrenic illnesses are discussed. On an average, schizophrenia showed no further change for the worse after a duration of five years, but rather a tendency to improve. The success and limitations of modern therapy were statistically determined. Many recovered schizophrenics continued to do well even without medication and social care. As a rule, schizophrenics had no endocrine pathology and endocrine patients were not schizophrenic. Neither a broken home in childhood nor an upbringing by a schizophrenic parent resulted in any important association with schizophrenia. However, a disturbed relationship with relatives and loved persons was more frequent in the anamnesis of schizophrenic women than of schizophrenic men. Most schizophrenics who had been schizoid before their psychosis had lived in miserable familial conditions.