THE CONCEPT OF PROCESS-REACTIVE SCHIZOPHRENIA

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Abstract
Although the evidence to date is far from unequivocal, it would seem from studies in the areas of perception, cognition, motivation, learning and performance, language behavior, affective responsiveness, social adjustment and early experience that process-reactive schizophrenia is a justifiable classificatory principle inasmuch as it focuses attention on significant parameters not considered in the Kraepelinian system. One question which future process-reactive research might attempt to answer would appear to be: Is the process-reactive dimension unique to schizophrenia, or may it be profitably extended to other forms of pathological as well as nonpathological behavior patterns? Some authors have already distributed non-schizophrenic and non-psychotic psychiatric samples along the process-reactive dimension, and Feffer and Phillips and Garmezy have suggested that such an attempt be made with normal groups. It is here hypothesized that the process-reactive continuum is applicable to many diverse behavioral modes of coping with the stresses of everyday living, and as such is a potentially powerful developmental concept.

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