Schizomimetic conditions and schizophrenia.

Abstract

Levitz and Ullmann have added operant reinforcement to the list of allegedly schizomimetic conditions that have been used to generate theories of schizophrenic thought disorder. The diversity of such allegedly schizomimetic conditions casts doubt on the validity of interpreting schizophrenic symptoms on the basis of any one of them. The very power of operant procedures to mimic any behavior, regardless of its origin, argues against invoking its schizomimetic power as evidence concerning the nature of schizophrenia. The potential usefulness of operant methods to alter schizophrenic symptoms need not be predicated on an operant origin of the disorder.

Impression management ability in psychiatric hospital samples and normals.

“…Instead, they indicate that psychiatric patients are less adept at impression management than normals and that process schizophrenics are particularly inept in this regard. Thus they add support to the viewpoint expressed elsewhere (Chapman, 1969;Price, 1973;Watson, 1972b) that the role of impression management in psychiatric hospitals has been exaggerated and that, where it does exist, it is more common in the milder disorders than in long-term process schizophrenia (Price, 1972;Watson, 1972bWatson, , 1973.…”

A critical evaluation of the learned helplessness model of depression.

“…Demonstration that a procedure can produce some features of a disorder in the laboratory is not sufficient to demonstrate the etiology of the disorder. Buchwald (1976) and Chapman (1969) have discussed in more detail the errors involved in concluding that such a demonstration means that one has shown how the naturally occurring disorder is produced.…”