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Toward a Definition of the Schizoid State: Evidence from Studies of Twins and Their Families

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Remi J. Cadoret*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, 4940 Audubon Avenue, St. Louis, Mo. 63110, U.S.A.

Extract

Over the years investigators have described psychiatrically abnormal individuals in the families of schizophrenics. These unusual persons have been given a variety of names: schizoids, schizoid psychopaths, and the condition called schizoidia or schizophrenia-spectrum illness (Kahn, 1923; Planansky, 1966). With recent developments in family and adoptive studies of schizophrenia which have indicated a genetic factor playing a causative role, the schizoid state has assumed more importance, especially in estimating the type of inheritance (Heston, 1970). Furthermore, the schizoid state is of considerable interest from a clinical standpoint since it may represent a ‘forme fruste’ of schizophrenia, and as such a study of schizoids from the point of view of the factors which may have prevented a full-blown schizophrenic process would be of great interest.

Type
Abstract
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1973 

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