Antecedents and Continuities in Schizophreniform Behavior

Abstract

Several lines of research in recent years consistently and empirically support the view that the conditions underlying schizophrenic behavior clearly implicate interpersonal relations within the family [14, 15]. Even though the identification of factors etiologically significant for schizophrenia, as they may be ultimately delineated, probably will involve the interplay of many conditions not necessarily independent of one another, it is very likely that the familial environment will be found to be of prime importance in eliciting schizophrenic behavior. Yet such a statement is too nonspecific to have much use for mapping the factors contributing to the etiology of schizophrenia. We are still at the stage of identifying and elaborating the conditions that appear to have some reasonable probability of contributing to its development. Systematically exploring some of the variables and the conditions surrounding them in any particular investigation need not necessarily imply that more than a limited portion of the variance is being investigated. At this stage of development of our knowledge about schizophrenia, wise strategy still favors the systematic parametric exploration, in some depth, of quite disparate domains of variables, for which there is both empirical evidence and theory to indicate their probable involvement in the underlying mechanisms.