[Anamnesis of adolescent schizophrenics. A contribution on the problem of the etiology of schizophrenia].
We discussed 13 patients, 10 boys and 3 girls-aged 12-17, who fell ill of schizophrenia. 12 of them had a schizophrenic parent, 2 of them other schizophrenic relatives. All grew up in an isolated and facadelike family. Their education was limited and rigid. They often lived in strained relations. There was no delimination between the family-members-as familytherapists describe it as typical in families with a schizophrenic member. They were conspicuous long before the outbrake of their schizophrenia: 8 without initiative, overadapted and well behaving, 3 overactive, 2 aggressive towards their mothers, 8 boys heavily depending on their mothers, the 2 girls correspondingly on their fathers. 5 were overprotected by their mothers and 5 affectively isolated within their families. There is strong evidence they were MBD-patients. All were isolated at school, could not meet basic requirements, 7 were retarded in their speech development. It is assumed that MBD-patients develop schizophrenia when confronted and affectively and perceptively overstressed due to our society's role-change-demands; for this age leads to different social relationships (own family, peergroup, professional position). This unbearable situation leads to panic and auto-sensory deprivation. And so they became less capable to perceive distinctively, and they lost a part of their toilsamly conditioned reactions. These reactions can be compared with those of normals, who get into panic, are flooded by irritations or sensorily deprivated. The loss of the conditioned reactions corresponds with the observations made on animals being overstressed in their discriminatory capability. Contrary to these normal reactions the symptoms of schizophrenia remain unchanged, because the return into reality for them creates an unbearable demand. Therefore contrary to normal it is possible that the loss of conditioned reactions of these patients goes on for a long time, which equals a schizophrenic defect.