Bleuler and Schizophrenia

Abstract

Eugen Bleuler has had a major influence on American psychiatry. His theory of schizophrenia, linking descriptive psychiatry to Freud's psychoanalytic concepts, has had an important influence on diagnosis and treatment, especially in America. This paper will summarize first some textbook descriptions of Bleuler's contribution and then some major issues which Bleuler discusses in his book Dementia Praecox, or the Group of Schizophrenias. I hope to demonstrate that the textbook accounts do not adequately describe the complexity and ambiguity of Bleuler's approach.