An objective study of relationships and discontinuities between paranoid schizophrenia and Kretschmer's syndrome of sensitive delusions of reference

Abstract

The nosological status of Kretschmer's syndrome of sensitive delusions of reference (Sensitiver Beziehungswahn) has been a matter of discussion over many years. In an attempt to resolve the matter, a series of 147 consecutive patients who had been diagnosed as schizophrenic were reviewed. A group of 13 patients met specified criteria for Kretschmer's syndrome of sensitive delusions of reference, and these patients were compared with the remainder in a variety of ways. The patients with the syndrome of sensitive delusions of reference differed from the remainder in their antecedents (family history and premorbid personality), their EEG status, stresses at time of onset, and response to treatment. The evidence offered here points to the separateness of this syndrome from the other schizophrenic illnesses displayed by the patients reviewed.

A comparison of puerperal psychosis and the schizophreniform variant of manic‐depression

“…It is unfortunately necessary to acknowledge that if the needs of investigators into the causation of the functional psychoses are all that is considered, DSM I11 and similar sets of criteria are failures. Psychogenic hallucinated paranoid states meet the DSM 111 criteria for schizophrenia, but are etiologically and in other ways separate from the rest of the schizophrenias (8) which are themselves heterogeneous (1 1). Manic-depressive disease divides, at the least, into familial and acquired varieties (12,13).…”

“…Hays' numerically coded information on schizophrenic patients has given rise to several papers (1,2,8,9) in which criteria for selection of patients, scoring methods and so on were described in detail.…”

The Role of Shame in Schizophrenia Delusion

“…der Kretschmer (1918) was the first author to highlight the transnosographic role of affective traits in the development of delusions. In particular, his “sensitive delusion of reference” (“sensitive Beziehungswahn”) lies on a complex interaction between pervasive experiences of shame and referential thinking (Douglass and Hays, 1980). The negative perception of the self as vulnerable, weak, different, or subordinate is a common feature in individuals with paranoid symptoms, and in particular with persecutory delusions (Freeman, 2007).…”

Somatopsychic Aspects of Paranoia

“…This definition by Krae pelin [1] is still valid, despite numerous modi fications having been discussed in the course of time. Modern psychiatry [2][3][4] retains this concept of paranoia.…”