title: Eugen Bleuler's schizophrenia--a modern perspective.
abstract: The introduction of the term and concept schizophrenia earned its inventor, Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, worldwide fame. Prompted by the rejection of the main principle of Kraepelinian nosology, namely prognosis, Bleuler's belief in the clinical unity of what Kraepelin had described as dementia praecox required him to search for alternative characterizing features that would allow scientific description and classification. This led him to consider psychological, and to a lesser degree, social factors alongside an assumed underlying neurobiological disease process as constitutive of what he then termed schizophrenia, thus making him an early proponent of a bio-psycho-social understanding of mental illness. Reviewing Bleuler's conception of schizophrenia against the background of his overall clinical and theoretical work, this paper provides a critical overview of Bleuler's key nosological principles and links his work with present-day debates about naturalism, essentialism, and stigma.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Psychiatric Hospital, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Anke
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Maatz
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Psychiatric Hospital, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hoff
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Psychiatric Hospital, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Jules
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Angst
mesh_terms: D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000266:history; D013557:Switzerland