Autism: Core of the Schizophrenic Reaction

Abstract

The question in the title of this book can be answered in different ways. It may be understood as aiming at some definition, maybe obtained by a consensus, circumscribing a group of individuals who can be said to belong to a special class, defined by means of clear criteria that should enable everybody working clinically with schizophrenics to know fairly exactly what kind of individual is meant by the definition. Such a consensus would, however, still not tell us what schizophrenia really is. The definition would probably say nothing about the causes and development of the disorder. The consensus definition would just work as a tool for understanding among those who work with schizophrenics, some of whom would, however, regard the definition as being too broad, and others as being too narrow. At the present state of our knowledge of the causes of schizophrenia viewpoints concerning etiology differ greatly.