A test for distinguishing between schizophrenoses and psychoneuroses.

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
This paper reports a study carried on under the direction of Professor John J. B. Morgan, Director of the Psychological Clinic of the State University of Iowa. The research reported is the third of a series of studies bearing on the variability of liminal values. It seems reasonable to think that psychopathologists and psychologists are demanding objective and empirical differential tests which will apply to any period of the mental disease under consideration. Many mental diseases are confusing from a diagnostic viewpoint, especially in the prodromal stages and as treat ment depends on an accurate diagnosis, the diagnosis should be made early and accurately. "Clinically, it is held by all workers that the schizophrenoses and the psyehoneuroses are two diametrically opposed groups, the former characterized by negativism and restriction of reactions, and the latter by suggestibility and expansion of behavior. If these two groups are clinically opposed and represented undoubtedly by underlying mechanisms of an antithetic nature, it seems that an experiment could be devised which would take advantage of this difference, thereby acting as an objective differential test. A test is described by which it is possible to compare the reactions of a patient under quite normal conditions with the reactions of the same patient under certain sudorific circumstances. The reactions consist of responses to auditory and electrical stimuli, and the comparison is made on the basis of threshold values. That is, the threshold of the normal period is compared with that of the crystal-gazing period. Fifty-nine cases were tested, twenty-two psychoneurotics, twenty-four dementia praecox patients, two manic-depressive individuals, and eleven organic psychotics. The psychoneurotic and dementia praecox cases are considered in the main as bearing directly on the problem of the thesis. All of the psychoneurotics experienced a lowering of the threshold during crystal gazing. All of the dementia praecox cases except three, about whom there is considerable doubt as to the accuracy of the diagnoses, experienced a rise of the threshold during crystal gazing. Several of the psychoneurotics and two of the three dementia praecox patients, whose diagnoses are questioned, were hypnotized. All cases experienced a lowering of the threshold during hypnosis. The direction of change of the length of the reaction time during crystal gazing or hypnosis was not of sufficient uniformity to warrant any conclusions being made from reaction times. On the bases of the two groups being clinically diametrically opposed and reacting consistently in regard to the lowering or raising of the threshold during a certain artificial state in opposite directions, it is held that a differential test has been found. The alteration of the liminal value during crystal gazing is thought to be due to a central set or attitude and not to any peripheral factors such as changes in the receptor. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: