Quotes XV
Quotations about
PSYCHOTICISM, PSYCHOSIS and PSYCHOPATHY
DO PEOPLE REALLY DIFFER ALONG A SINGLE GENERAL DIMENSION
OF 'PSYCHOTICISM' (AS BOLDLY CHAMPIONED BY HANS EYSENCK)? OR MIGHT
THE EXTREME HUMAN CONDITIONS OF PSYCHOSIS AND PSYCHOPATHY (AND
THEIR INDIRECT LINKS TO UNUSUAL CREATIVITY) BE EXPLAINED BY REFERENCE
TO SOME OF THE 'BIG FIVE-OR-SIX' DIMENSIONS OF PSYCHOMETRIC PSYCHOLOGY
IN THE 1990'S (SEE QUOTES III)? ONE COMPROMISE WOULD BE TO SEE
INTERACTIONS (MULTIPLIER EFFECTS) BETWEEN
HIGH-will (or wilfulness) (high-ego?),
LOW-conscience (low-superego?) AND
LOW-affection (high thanatos?)
AS TENDING TO MAKE FOR EYSENCKIAN 'PSYCHOTICISM'. HOWEVER,
DEPRESSIVE PSYCHOSES WILL INVOLVE ALSO LOW-energy,
AND SCHIZOPHRENIA QUITE OFTEN INVOLVES LOW-will
SO SOMETHING MORE THAN ONE DIMENSION IS INVOLVED. A FOUR-DIMENSIONAL
APPROACH ALSO ALLOWS GREATER RECOGNITION OF THE VERY DIFFERENT
TYPES OF 'PSYCHOPATHY' (PRIMARY, SECONDARY, FANATICAL AND SEXUAL).
(FOR CREATIVITY, SEE QUOTES XVII.)
In the questioning 1960's, anxieties were often expressed
that even the well-established diagnostic category of schizophrenia
might need to be broken up. Schizophrenia might be just a 'label'
imposed by insensitive clinicians on departures from conventional
behaviour that were related only in being at once incapacitating
and beyond the grasp of medicine. 'Simple' schizophrenics are
withdrawn, anxious, inadequate and lacking in initiative; whereas
'paranoid' schizophrenics often seem entirely different-assertive,
dogmatic, hostile, and exhibiting a strange yet impressive independence
of mind. In manic-depressive psychosis-the other major
psychotic illness affecting young adults-the condition itself
is actually defined by a tendency to swing between the
disorder's two named extremes.
At the same time, the less clear-cut diagnoses of psychopathy
(mainly affecting men) and hysterical personality disorder
(mainly affecting women) were similarly attacked as involving
undue subscription to 'the medical model.' Instead, might they
not index psychosocial distress or-if g was high-healthy
rebellion against authority? Although commonly feckless and impulsive,
'psychopaths' are also admitted to differ very markedly amongst
themselves-being e.g. 'inadequate', 'aggressive', or 'creative'
(according to the classic British model of Sir David Henderson);
and individual volatility and diversity of symptomatology is plainly
expected of 'hysterics' (whose disorders may be imitations, exaggerations
or prolongations of any other ailments known to medicine).
Again, the wider category of personality disorders is commonly
held by textbook writers to embrace the 'antisocial', the 'paranoid',
the 'histrionic', the 'narcissistic', the 'avoidant', the 'dependent',
the 'obsessive-compulsive', the 'passive-aggressive', the 'schizoid',
the 'schizotypal' and the 'borderline' (e.g. D.L.Rosenhan &
M.E.P.Seligman, 1989, Abnormal Psychology): the unity amongst
such variations is hard to detect-except in putative sequelae
such as joblessness and unmarriageability.
Today the climate of psychiatric opinion is different, even if
many uncertainties remain. For it turned out as follows.
1. Manic-depressive psychosis could be impressively alleviated,
in about a third of sufferers, by chemical means (lithium carbonate);
and no treatments other than those of a physical nature (especially
ECT, chlorpromazine, MAO-inhibitors and imipramine) had any marked
effect on psychotic disorders.
2. Manic-depressive psychosis and schizophrenic psychosis seemed
to run together in the same family lines, suggesting the conditions
might indeed have something in common-at least in terms of genetic
factors. (See e.g. Eysenck, 1995, Genius, Cambridge University
Press; but also Van Kampen, 1996, Europ. J. Person.)
3. Hysteria and psychopathy also ran in the same family lines
as each other; and showed a degree of familial linkage to psychosis.
4. Hans and Sybil Eysenck were able to develop a questionnaire
measure on which both psychotic and psychopathic (as also criminal,
illicit-drug-using, and sexually promiscuous and sado-masochistic)
people had elevated scores. To judge from its items, the measure
seemed to reflect personal disillusionment, bitterness, cynicism,
idiosyncrasy and a disregard for convention; and the Eysencks
christened it Psychoticism (P).
5. The Eysencks' scale had a rather frosty reception initially,
and it proved hard to pinpoint the psychological essence of P;
but, by 1990, other workers, too, in psychiatric research, accepted
some version of the Eysencks' idea that some of the above links
did really exist-and that there were few such corresponding links
to 'neurotic' disorders. [The modest frequencies of neurosis in
the families of schizophrenics ruled out the idea that P was simply
a factor of 'unhappiness' or of being thought 'deviant'; or that
P differences come about merely because the deviant tend to end
up having to marry the deviant.]
However, though Eysenck and others repeatedly found that MZ twins
were more similar to each other in P than were DZ twins, the story
of the origins of P differences still leaves other explanatory
options half-open. To be sure, no-one has found any environmental
factor that will precipitate schizophrenia in anyone without schizophrenic
relatives. Yet the DZ correlations for P (as for many other personality
variables) are very low (around .15) and suggest that the higher
MZ correlation (around .45) must arise partly because of genetic-genetic
multiplicative interactions (epistasis) that can only occur
in people carrying virtually identical genes (see Quotes
V); and that, even then, there must be environmental factors that
push twins apart phenotypically (so as to explain the remarkably
low concordance between DZ's reared together).
Psychometrician-psychologists themselves have not been as sympathetic
to Eysenck's position as might have been expected. This is principally
because Eysenck's P dimension has a strongly positively skewed
distribution of scores and does not so readily emerge as a major
dimension in typical questionnaire work with normal subjects-usually,
admittedly, of above-average educational and intellectual levels).
Thus it is often suggested that Eysenck's P reflects a mixture
of 'low conscientiousness' (c-), 'low tender-mindedness
/ affection' (a-) and 'low agreeableness / high will (wilfulness)'
(w+) -perhaps together with multiplicative interaction
effects between such traits, or between them and extremes of extraversion-introversion
(e+, e-).
By way of a psychological model, Eysenck and co-workers have stressed
in recent years that acute schizophrenics and high-P scorers are
especially good at avoiding 'latent inhibition'-i.e. good
at disregarding that a word which is now succeeded by a paired
associate did not have that associate previously, and thus learning
the new pair relatively quickly (e.g. De La Casa et al.,
1993, Brit.J.Psychiat.). This finding is important in being
the first-ever well-replicated discovery of a task at which schizophrenics
reliably do better than normals; and the finding looks
compatible with the notion that there is some link between psychoticism
and 'creativity' (which arguably requires easy 'disinhibition'
of former and conventional respones).
Still, it is hard to believe that such a link of a laboratory
ability (which itself looks like c-) to psychosis and psychopathy
will prove more than one part of a larger story. A fuller account
might stress the bizarre and largely inappropriate emotions seen
in schizophrenia, manic-depression, psychopathy and hysterical
personality disorder. At the extreme, in some cases (rare today)
patients will 'switch off' emotion (as in schizophrenic thought
blocking); but such blocking phenomena probably only occur after
extreme and distressing emotion has been experienced. More commonly,
all these conditions seem better characterized by suggesting that,
while the 'neurotic' recruits crystallised personality features
to control emotion {see Quotes XIV}, high-P people tend to switch
into other emotions to try to handle problems that
have arisen for them because of an initially negative and persistent
primary emotion. Thus psychopaths switch from anxiety at reminders
of their inadequacies into incandescent hostility and aggressive
retaliation; and from proper depression at their repeated incarcerations
into reckless and explosive activity and sensation-seeking.
As an overall impression, schizophrenic patients, whatever their
starting point in c-, tend to present as either simple
(w-) or paranoid (a-); and manic-depressive patients
range between the hyperactivity of c- to the behavioural
dampening of e-. While psychopaths may actually have the
more chronic dysphoric mood states-and thus be tempted
to use illicit drugs or to seek mind-altering sensations-psychotic
patients are more noticeably peculiar. In the low-w and
low-a of schizophrenia, the patient's attentional system
collapses. Instead of shifting between the narrow attention of
high-w and the broad attention of high-a, the patient
has diminished capacity for both types of perceptual intake--like
a car driver lacking both daylight or headlights. Likewise, the
depressive psychotic, instead of swinging easily, as most people
normally do, between speed and accuracy of behavioural output,
is capable of neither the speed of e+ nor the alertness
of c+: such a patient resembles a car driver who is having
a simultaneous problem with both engine and brakes. The
following Figure (used previously in Quotes XIV) indicates the
possible moods and behavioural restrictions associated with moving
towards the centre of the 'Circle' defined by four of the 'Big
Six' dimensions at the same time.
{Background hypothesis as to relation between moods and personality:
ELATION - DEPRESSION probably relates
to extraversion - introversion
CONFIDENCE - FEAR " " "
will - subduedenss
ALERTNESS - FATIGUE " "
" control - casualness
TRUST - HOSTILITY " " "
affection - suspicion. }
Narrow
Attention
w¦CO
¦
¦
¦
¦ A
¦FE c
S c
p EL DE FA AL u
e -------------------- --------------------- r
e e c a
d ¦HO c
¦ y
¦
¦
¦
a¦TR
Broad
Attention
Illustration of four of the 'Big Six' dimensions of personality,
suggesting how they differentiate from two more basic contrasts
in strategies of intake (broad versus narrow) and output
(speed versus accuracy).
In some contrast, patients who are merely psychopathic (or,
as is said, 'personality disordered') might be argued at least
not to have lost whole systems of behaviour (for input or output)
at the same time. Thus they are left with some capacity for informed
action even if they are still restricted. One way of envisaging
their limitations would be in terms of four main groupings, as
follows.
Primary, 'aggressive' psychopathy: c-, a-
Secondary, 'inadequate' psychopathy: w-, e-
Authoritarian / 'fanatic' personality: a-, e-
Sexual deviations / 'perversions': w-, c-
In terms of their overall 'attitudes', these four groups could
also be placed at similar positions, towards the centre, in the
same two-dimensional space as it projects beyond the plane of
temperament into crystallized beliefs (see Quotes XXV). Such a
researchable proposal may help to articulate the now widely held
view-first championed in psychology by Hans Eysenck-that very
different types of ideological extremist may share personality
disorder in common. (Even the particular proposal that extremists
of the left and right share authoritarianism in common has lately
been confirmed in Russia, where a Right-Wing Authoritarianism
scale was found to correlate positively with support for egalitarian
ideas-McFarland, 1992, J.Person.&Soc.Psychol.) {To
bring up the Figure on a computer screen, go to View and
select Page Layout.}
Four dimensions of personality (other than g and n)
shown with regard to how they may sometimes appear as fused and
how they may relate to social and political attitudes. {Possible
Freudian equivalents shown in italics.}
Whether the extreme variations seen in high-P conditions have
a basis in differential functioning of the cerebral hemispheres
is still the really big question that guides much psychiatric
research-though the challenging of Flor-Henry's (1974,
Brit. J.Psychiat.) notion of schizophrenia as a 'left
hemisphere disorder' by Cutting's (1992, Brit.J. Psychiat.)
notion of it as a 'right hemisphere disorder' suggests
that research may frankly have some way to go. It is tempting
to think of the right hemisphere as relatively active and/or relatively
disturbed in depression and paranoia-for the right hemisphere
seems (especially in right-handed males) to handle patterns, expectations
and superego-like functions; however, the way in which one hemisphere
compensates for transmission failures in the other needs much
further exploration.
Since the two hemispheres are broadly so similar to one
another- offering perhaps 'back up' services for each other-it
is possible that some people will handle problems by switching
occasionally from one hemisphere to another. Whether they thereby
switch between componential functions (like 'eros' and 'superego'),
or between entire personalities (as perhaps in multiple [normally
dual] personality disorder-see Quotes VI) will presumably depend
on the way in which their hemispheres were functionally specialized
in the first place. This is a parameter on which there are sex
differences-e.g. McGlone, 1981, Behav. & Brain Sci.;
Willerman et al., 1992, Intelligence 15. A tendency
to get 'stuck' in the patterns of thought and behaviour that are
housed in one particular hemisphere might begin to account for
the strangely varied phenomena of psychosis and the personality
disorders. Since males have greater specialization of cortical
function, it may be easier for them to exhibit-as they do-the
clinical extremes of psychosis and psychopathy; whereas
a female who makes a cortical shift may more readily find herself
moving from one whole 'personality' to another. Likewise, the
male's greater functional specialization in conjunction with hemisphere
switching or interhemispheric suppression (Brand, 1995, Current
Psychology of Cognition 5) may enable the extremes of psychological
functioning that (in combination with g) make for 'genius'-see
Quotes XVII. By contrast, females normally seem to operate in
a more bi-hemisphered way: they are more adversely affected by
sectioning of the callosum (Campbell et al., 1981, Brain
104) and they show more bilateral activation during phonological
processing (Shaywitz et al., 1995, Nature 373).
{Questions about the psychology of the cerebral hemispheres are
considered more generally in Quotes XIX.}
One last line of speculation would concern the role of g
and n in differentiating personality structure. Arguably
there is greater differentiation at higher g (Brand, 1994,
Psychologica Belgica 34)-perhaps explaining why psychotic
disorders only occur in human adults. But pilot work in Edinburgh
has suggested that n makes for greater differentiation
of the 'intake' functions and for less differentiation of the
'output' functions. In high-n subjects, measures of e
and c correlate negatively, leaving such subjects distinguished
from each other by a broad, e vs c, ACTIVITY factor
(perhaps reflecting the overall outcome of eros versus superego
conflict); while low-n subjects have seemed to show a substantial
negative correlation between w and a, and are thus
distinguished from each other principally by a relatively crude
POTENCY factor (perhaps reflecting whether or not thanatos
and ego have managed to co-operate and integrate, or
whether both have been rejected as 'too dangerous'). - The dependence
of some personality dimensions on others has only lately begun
to be examined: see Brand, 1994, Psychol.Belgica 34 and
Brand, 1997, in H.Nyborg, Festschrift II for H.J.Eysenck).
For coverage of general intelligence
and other main trait differences, see:
BRAND, C.R. (1996) The g Factor.
Chichester : Wiley DePublisher.
"The nature and measurement of intelligence is a political
hot potato. But Brand in this extremely readable, wide-ranging
and up-to-date
book is not afraid to slaughter the shibboleths of modern "educationalists".
This short book provides a great deal for thought
and debate."
Professor Adrian Furnham, University College London.
The book was first issued, in February, but then withdrawn, in
April, by the 'publisher' because it was deemed to have infringed
modern canons of
'political correctness.'
It received a perfectly favourable review in Nature (May
2, 1996, p. 33).
For a Summary of the book, Newsletters
concerning the
de-publication affair, details of how to see the book for scholarly
purposes, and others' comments and reviews,
see the Internet URL sites:
http://laboratory.psy.ed.ac.uk/DOCS/crb/internet.html
http://www.webcom.com/zurcher/thegfactor/index.html
For Chris Brand's 'Get Real About Race!'-his
popular exposition of his views on race and education in the Black
hip-hop music magazine 'downlow' (Autumn, 1996)-see:
http://www.bhs.mq.edu.au/~tbates/intelligence/Brand_downlow.html
***************************************************************************************************
INDEX to QUOTES XV
Page
(i) Is there a dimension of Psychoticism linking the psychotic
disorders, and linking them in turn with psychopathy and personality
disorder? 11
(ii) How do differences in Psychoticism come about? 15
Environmentally?
Genetically?
(iii) What is Psychoticism? 19
The role of e, c, w, and a {See Quotes III}
(iv) Observations about particular 'high-P-type'
diagnoses. 26
(v) What might be the functional advantages of Psychoticism?
30
Epilogue
******************************************************************************************
(i) Is there a dimension of Psychoticism which has psychological
reality, links the psychotic disorders, and links them in
turn with psychopathy and personality disorder?
"We have reached the stage at which the only certain
conclusion is that the concept of 'schizophrenia' is now intellectually
valueless and that, along with the structure of diagnostic psychiatry
to which it belongs, it should be abandoned. It is actively hindering
our understanding of psychological process."
D.BANNISTER, 1976, Bulletin of the British Psychological Society
29.
"Given the probable heterogeneity in the pathogenesis of
schizophrenia (S.Schwartz, 1982, Behav. & Brain Sciences
5), it may be advantageous to limit the statistical validation
of experimental cognitive data to particular signs and/or symptoms
rather than the diagnosis per se.
R.E.HOFFMAN, 1987, Behavioral & Brain Sciences 10.
"Four main groups of functional psychoses have been recognized
since the early years of the century: schizophrenia and affective
psychoses, acute psychoses of good prognosis; and chronic paranoid
psychoses. The air of permanence and stability is misleading.
None of these four groupings, or of the individual cases to be
included within them, has been clearly demonstrated to be a diseases
entity. All are still defined by their clinical syndromes and
these syndromes appear to merge inevitably into one another and
into other syndromes in the domain of neurotic illness and personality
disorder. As a result it is not clear where the boundaries should
be drawn."
R.E.KENDELL, 1987, British Medical Bulletin 43.
"....there are several indications that schizophrenia and
manic-depressive psychosis are genetically unrelated [6
refs].... The application of consistent diagnostic criteria {DSM
III for both parents and children} proved important in a family
study by Loranger (1981, Psychiatrica Scandinavica 63).
Instead of [any] excess of schizophrenia amongst the children
of affectively ill patients, the lifetime expectancy for schizophrenia
in a group of 265 children of 200 manic-depressive probands proved
to be the same as in the population at large."
D. van KAMPEN, 1993, European Journal of Personality 7.
"One of the hardest parts of dealing with schizophrenia is
believing that there's any such thing."
M.VONNEGUT, 1975, The Eden Express.
"Police were unable to find any reason for Kallinger's attack
on [a fellow prisoner at Huntingdon State Correctional Institute,
Pa.] There was no argument, nothing to provoke the incident, the
police declared. The police couldn't have known that the provocation
had not come from without but from within. Joe [Kallinger] had
given the prison warning of what was happening within himself.
He had done so by filing....seven requests to see the psychiatrist.
The March 1 slip read: "Request to see Doctor for: murdering
thoughts to cut apart." The March 8 slip stated: "....I
am being compelled to kill with my button strangler" [a strangler
sewn with buttons to which razor blades were attached].... ....[On
May 10, interviewed by the chief psychologist,] Joe talked of
waking up to find things out of proportion. He described his bloody
thoughts of cutting and slicing [of the penis], and Dr Brian,
obviously moved and horrified, summed up the horror the hallucinations
had caused Joe by saying "Your are tortured!"....
....At the hearing [on May 17], Dr Brian testified that there
was a contradiction between the "aberrant content" of
Joe's "thinking patterns" and the cogent "way,
manner, style, and order" in which he presented these patterns.
For this reason, Dr Brian diagnosed him as "clearly psychopathic."
It was the same 'antisocial personality', 'sociopath' diagnosis
made in the past by prosecution psychiatrists, and initially by
Dr Jablon at Holmesburg. ....Dr Wawrose testified at the hearing
that Joe was "rather manic-depressed at the present time."....
On July 31, Dr Eun Sook Yoo, a psychiatrist and at that time the
clinical director of the hospital {to which Kallinger had by then
been transferred} told me that the tests showed that "Joseph
is primarily paranoid. But so many other kinds of schizophrenia
showed up during the tests and the psychiatric examinations that,
in diagnosing him, we used the broader classification of 'schizophrenia,
chronic undifferentiated type'." Dr Davis wrote that "the
test established the presence of a schizophrenic process of long
duration. His illness is always active and breaks through periodically."
Flora Rheta SCHREIBER, 1983, The Shoemaker: the Anatomy
of a Psychotic. London : Penguin, 1984.
"Many [cases of 'psychopathic disorder'] have a severe underlying
neurosis and they are entitled to be handled in legislation in
the same way as those with psychotic conditions."
Dr J.R.HAMILTON (Medical Director, Broadmoor Hospital), 1986,
letter to The Times, 4 vii.
"M.Eigen [The Psychotic Core] argues that "overtly
psychotic individuals make up a relatively small proportion of
both the general and patient populations; but psychotic attitudes
and states can be components of a broad range of emotional states
and mental disorders....." Eigen gives descriptions of attempts
to omnipresently annihilate emotional life in order to avoid emotional
pain.... Eigen must certainly rank amongst the foremost of contemporary
analytic therapists and theorists who are making significant steps
in furthering our understanding of madness."
P.MOLLON, 1987, British Journal of Psychiatry 151.
"In Megargee & Bohn's monumental study of offender personality
types, the types with the worst institutional conduct were consistently
distinguished by high scores on the MMPI schizophrenia scale."
David THORNTON, 1988, in Sharon Avis, D.P.S.Report I, No.29.
London : Home Office.
"[40 recent-onset schizophrenic patients were tested] during
the patients' recovery phase. Results showed that two thirds of
all patients had personality disorders....the most common being
antisocial, borderline and schizotypal [or, according to a different
test] dependent and avoidant."
B.HOGG et al., 1988, to 24th International Congress
of Psychology, Sydney (Abstract T163).
"Factor analyses revealed a coherent P [Psychoticism] supertrait
incorporating the narrower traits of impulsivity, sensation-seeking,
lack of socialization and responsibility, autonomy and aggression....
I would suggest that antisocial personality disorder represents
the extreme end of the P dimension, and the clinical state of
hypomania represents an episodic expression of P tendencies. Perhaps
the dimension may also subsume hostile, paranoid psychoses, including
some schizophrenics; but, as I would define the dimensions, it
would not include schizophrenics with negative symptomatology
such as withdrawal, blunted emotions and lack of interest and
motivation."
M.ZUCKERMAN, 1989, Personality & Individual Differences
10.
"....there does exist a syndrome that can be called
schizophrenia....; at least in the florid state it is easily recognized
in the clinic....; it is found in all civilized societies the
world over.... [There is a growing movement in psychiatry to distinguish
diagnostic categories by the drugs specific to them, the schizophrenias
by the phenothiazines and manic-depression by lithium. If this
is correct, many patients formerly diagnosed as having paranoid
schizophrenia are really manic-depressive since they respond only
to lithium. In the manic phase, almost half of such patients have
hallucinations.]"
Julian JAYNES, 1977 & 1990, The Origin of Consciousness
in the
Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Chicago : Houghton Mifflin.
"....given that the psychotic relative of a schizophrenic
patient is not schizophrenic, he is more likely to be diagnosed
manic-depressive than anything else....schizophrenia and affective
psychosis are not very distinct entities and groups of closely
related familial cases frequently include both diagnoses."
L.S.PENROSE, 1991,
European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 240.
"A....weakness of modern psychiatric nosology is the whole-hearted
acceptance of Kraepelin's (1897) distinction between schizophrenia
and manic-depressive disorder (to use the modern terms). As we
shall see, these are not separate diseases, separated categorically
and qualitatively as would be physical disorders like cancer and
heart disease. This notion is also not true; the evidence against
this view of 'separate diseases' is quite strong. ....McGuffin
et al. (1982, Br.J.Psychiat.) reported on a set of monozygotic
triplets, two of whom had received a hospital diagnosis of schizophrenia,
while the third was considered to be a manic-depressive. Re-evaluation
and the use of 'blind' raters suggested that the discordance was
not simply due to misdiagnosis or differing diagnostic bias. Nor
is this finding an isolated instance [Dalby et al., 1986, J.Nerv.&
Mntl Ds; Farmer et al., 1987]."
H.J.EYSENCK, 1995, Genius: the Natural History of Creativity.
Cambridge University Press.
"One class {of variables linked to Psychoticism} deals with
biological variables (HLA B27, MAO; serotonin) of different kinds.
A second deals with laboratory behaviours (eye-tracking, dichotic
shadowing; sensitivity levels). A third is concerned with learning-conditioning
variables (latent inhibition; negative priming {and Kamin blocking
effect}). Yet a fourth is concerned with psychological variables
(creativity, hallucinatory activity; word association). Physiological
variables (EMG, autonomic-perceptual inversion) constitute a fifth
set of variables. It is the variety of variables which makes the
results impressive, together with their theoretical congruence...."
H.J.EYSENCK, 1995, Genius: the Natural History of Creativity.
Cambridge University Press.
(ii) How do differences in Psychoticism come about?
Environmentally?
"By 1950, almost everyone believed that the family
drives the schizophrenic crazy."
W.R.McFARLANE, 1983, Family Therapy in Schizophrenia.
New York : Guildford Press.
"Of course, madness is not just a matter of cultural fashion.
Depression and schizophrenia can have a biochemical basis. Mental
illness is as much a fact as smallpox or plague. But it is also,
as R.Porter (Mind-Forg'd Manacles) observes, a socially
constructed fact. It physical basis may be constant, but its external
symptoms and the interpretation of those symptoms will vary according
to the cultural assumptions of the time. To that extent, the history
of madness should be located half-way between the history of smallpox
or plague on the one hand and of witchcraft on the other."
Keith THOMAS, 1987, Times Literary Supplement, 4-10 xii.
Genetically?
"No environmental factor has been shown to produce
[schizophrenic] illness with even moderate probability in anyone
unrelated to an index case."
H.FREEMAN, 1983, Times Higher Educational Supplement, 8
iv.
"To dismiss the suffering and the deranged behaviour of the
schizophrenic merely as a problem of social labelling by those
who have power over those who have not seems a quite inadequate
response to a complex social and medical problem. ....{However}
the picture of Kallman as a bleeding-heart protector of schizophrenics,
adjusting his scientific theories to mirror his compassion, is
grotesquely false. The first Kallman publication on schizophrenia
is in a German volume....that contains the proceedings of the
frankly Nazi International Congress for Population Science. There,
in Berlin, Kallman argued vigorously for the sterilization of
the apparently healthy relatives of schizophrenics, as well as
of schizophrenics themselves. This was necessary, according to
Kallman, precisely because his data indicated that schizophrenia
was a genetically recessive disease."
S.ROSE, L.J.KAMIN & R.C.LEWONTIN, 1984,
Not in Our Genes. Harmondsworth : Penguin.
"If shared environment [e.g. parental models, faulty child-rearing
practices] were implicated in the high Psychopathic deviate
[Pd] scores of the [adoptive] probands, then we would
expect their [biologically] unrelated siblings reared in the same
homes also to display elevations on [Pd]. This expectation
was decisively disconfirmed.... {However} the biological mothers
of the high Pd [adopted] children average about .84s.d.
higher in raw score units on the Pd scale than does their
contrast group, [the biological mothers of low-Pd adoptees].
If this were a standardized IQ test, a difference of this magnitude
would be equivalent to 12.5 IQ points."
L.WILLERMAN, J.C.LOEHLIN & J.M.HORN, 1986,
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 27.
"It is concluded that the affective psychoses and schizophrenia
are related to each other on a continuum and that this continuum
has a genetic basis."
T.J.CROW, 1986, British Journal of Psychiatry 149.
|
"Crow's theory bears a striking similarity to the theory
of Britain's best-known psychologist, Hans Eysenck, to the effect
that a heritable trait of Psychoticism (P) underlies much psychotic
(and indeed psychopathic) disturbance.... I wonder, could the
theories of Crow and Eysenck by any chance be related?"
C.R.BRAND, 1987, British Journal of Psychiatry 150.
"There is no good evidence that [the incidence of schizophrenia]
has changed in the past 150 years, and it occurs in much the same
forms and with much the same frequency [nearly 1%] throughout
the world, regardless of environmental differences or differences
in language, creed, or social structure."
R.E.KENDELL, 1987, in R.Gregory, The Oxford Companion
to the Mind. Oxford University Press.
"Both endogenous and bipolar depression probably have a considerable
genetic diathesis. It is possible that depressive explanatory
style [tending towards pessimism] is heritable as well as acquired,
although this is untested."
M.E.P.SELIGMAN et al., 1988, Journal of Abnormal Psychology
97.
"The aetiology of borderline [personality disorder] states
is unclear. As with most other psychiatric disorders, a combination
of social risk factors (severe abuse in early life) and biological
vulnerability (genetic loading for manic-depressive psychosis)
is indicated (M.H.Stone, 1990, The Fate of Borderline Patients).
The precise balance of the two probably holds the key to many
outstanding controversies concerning diagnostic heterogeneity....
Stone's 20-year follow-up of 502 patients strongly indicates that
the long-term prognosis is good, and approximately 66% of patients
end up functioning normally or only with minimal symptoms. It
is as if maturation and decreased energy levels and impulsivity
with ageing brought about a developmental cure."
Anna HIGGITT and Peter FONAGY (Freud Memorial
Professor, Psychoanalysis Unit, University College
London), 1992, 'Psychotherapy in personality
"Since Flor-Henry (1969) first suggested a disturbance in
the usual balance of [left-]hemispheric functions in schizophrenia,
there has been a growth of publications on the issue.... A mere
handful of us have pointed to the right hemisphere as the
focus of the primary, pathogenetic disturbance.... In the last
three decades....the right hemisphere is now credited with contributing
the lion's share to metaphor and pragmatic conversation..... there
are reports that right-hemisphere-damaged subjects exhibit phenomena
or psychological deficits almost exactly like those seen in schizophrenia-"incoherent
and tangential speech", incorrect proverb interpretation,
and even impaired common sense, in the form of a reduced capacity
to estimate the cost of common objects..... the [neuropsychological]
phenomena exhibited in right-hemisphere-damaged patients [viz.
auditory hallucinations of third-person voices, disordered self-body
boundaries, annihilation of will, flattened affect, delusional
misidentification and formal thought disorder] are much more like
those seen in schizophrenics than any found in their left-hemisphere-damaged
counterparts.... eleven [of Parnas et al.'s, 1982, twelve]
non-affective psychotics] with a left-sided lesion were strictly
classified as {merely} paranoia or a paranoid-hallucinatory state,
leaving only one "Bleulerian schizophrenic".... To my
mind, the evidence linking schizophrenia with right hemisphere
dysfunction is overwhelming"
J.C.CUTTING, 1994, 'Evidence for right hemisphere dysfunction
in schizophrenia.' In A.S.David & J.C.Cutting, The Neuropsychology
of Schizophrenia. Hove, UK : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
"Consistent with previous findings, the present results {from
a study of home movies made in the 1950's} indicate that pre-schizophrenic
children, beginning in infancy, manifest significant neuromotor
abnormalities. Thus, the notion that schizophrenia is associated
with a central nervous system defect that is present at birth
receives strong support. The abnormalities observed in the pre-schizophrenic
children show striking consistency across subjects. Six of the
seven patients showed abnormalities in the left hand/arm during
the first two years of life."
Elaine F. WALKER, 1994, in A.S.David & J.C.Cutting, The
Neuro- psychology of Schizophrenia. Hove, UK: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
"Through the great resources of the U.S. National Institute
of Mental Health, 66 identical [twin] pairs were investigated
[for schizophrenia] over six years.... the concordance rate in
these identical twins was almost four times higher than in fraternals;
it is about the same as in multiple sclerosis.... Most of the
affected twins had at least some degree of intellectual impairment
and neurological abnormalities could be found in more than a half....
Both this and other studies have found evidence of abnormal functioning
in the temporal lobe, involving the speech area, and also in the
frontal lobe when the subject does an intellectual test.... Viruses
are certainly capable of causing the kind of localised damage
seen in the midbrain of some schizophrenic patients, but different
research groups bitterly disagree at present as to whether or
not influenza, for instance, can be implicated."
Hugh FREEMAN, 1994 Times Higher Educational Supplement,
21 x. (Reviewing new books on schizophrenia, authors including
I.Gottesman and Eve Johnstone.)
(iii) What is Psychoticism?
Especially: the possible roles of e, c, w,
and a {see Quotes III}.
"....both depression and schizophrenia are associated with
a breakdown in the processes of interhemispheric inhibition that
mediate perceptual asymmetry."
Olive JOHNSON & D.CROCKETT, 1982,
Journal of Abnormal Psychology. 91.
"It seems to us....plausible to explain our results in terms
of an affective-motivational deficit common to both psychopaths
and schizophrenics...."
R.HOWARD et al., 1984, Personality & Individual
Differences.
"...there is an overlap between the symptoms of mania and
schizophrenia and between the symptoms of depression and Parkinson's
disease. The hypothesis presented here suggests that there is
an overlap between these pathologies and a third dimension: the
neuroanatomical substrates involved. Thus, overactivation of forebrain
dopamine circuitry and the resultant disruption of thalamocortical
positive feedback....leads to rapid switching and insufficient
filtering of cortical information, manifested clinically as psychosis
and dyskinesia. The underactivation of forebrain dopamine circuitry
with the enhancement of thalamo-cortical positive feedback leads
to the preservation of a fixed set of cortical activity manifested
clinically by depression and Parkinson's disease."
N.R.SWERDLOW & G.F.KOOB, 1987, Behavioral & Brain Sciences
10.
"If psychosis is not the symptom of a hidden-as yet
undiagnosed, or undiagnosable-brain disease, then what
is it? The answer, I'm afraid, is {only} too simple: it is a form
of behavior. Specifically, psychosis is behavior judged to be
bad-injurious to the self or others. It is also a form
of behavior closely connected with dishonesty: a person who is
honest with himself-"true to himself", as Socrates
put it-cannot, in my opinion, be or become
psychotic, although he may, of course, be called psychotic."
Thomas SZASZ, 1987, Insanity. New York : Wiley DePublisher.
"The 6,000 members of the National Schizophrenia Fellowship
know very well from personal experience and from other members
of their families that schizophrenia is a very real and very distressing
disease which can be fairly accurately diagnosed in its more serious
states but, as with all other diseases, can sometimes be misdiagnosed
in its early stages or milder forms. A quarter of a million people
in Britain today suffer from schizophrenia and people [who deny
the validity and biological basis of the diagnosis] increase the
misery of them and their families by denying the reality of this
severely disabling illness."
Judith WELEMINSKY, 1988, New Statesman & Society, 9
ix.
"[Gordon Claridge, Origins of Mental Illness] stresses
that a crucial feature of the psychotic brain is the loosening,
or relative failure, of its homeostatic regulation, and that this
explains the extreme variability of psychotic behaviour. Most
interesting is the thesis that homeostatic dysregulation not only
refers to the vertical or hierarchical but also to the horizontal
organization of brain processes."
P.BECKER, 1988, European Journal of Personality 2.
"The construct of adequacy of ego functions refers to the
individual's abilities to perform such tasks as: delaying gratification
when necessary; tolerating dysphoric affects such as anxiety,
depression, shame, or guilt;
discriminating between consensually verifiable perceptions of
the
environment and internally determined fantasies (reality testing);
and
other adaptive tasks.
Normal and neurotic people are typified by intact and adequate
capacities to manage these adaptive tasks, whereas psychotic individuals
have extremely impaired skills in these areas."
G.STRICKER & J.R.GOLD, 1988, Journal of Personality Disorder
2.
"Smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEM) is one measure of central
nervous system "neurointegrative" function. The capacity
of an individual to track a smoothly swinging pendulum without
an undue number of saccadic intrusions appears to be a marker
for involuntary attention, that is, the ability to center on a
target and maintain that focus. SPEM is known to be impaired in
schizophrenic patients and in the close biologic relatives of
schizophrenic patients, to be a trait rather than a state marker,
and to have a substantial genetic basis... [College students]
who were poor trackers demonstrated impaired capacity for interpersonal
enjoyment, relatedness, sexual satisfaction and friendship."
H.KLAR, L.J.SIEVER & E.COCCARO, 1988,
Journal of Personality Disorders 2.
"If our theory [of greater right-hemisphere activity in schizophrenia,
due to release from left-hemisphere inhibition] is true, any extensive
dysfunction of the left temporal cortex due to disease, circulatory
changes, or stress-induced alteration of its neurochemistry should
release the right temporal cortex from its normal inhibitory control.
When temporal lobe epilepsy is caused by a lesion on the left
temporal lobe, thus (presumably) releasing the right from its
normal inhibition, a full 90 per cent of the patients develop
paranoid schizophrenia with massive auditory hallucinations. When
the lesion is on the right temporal lobe alone, fewer than 10
per cent develop such symptoms. In fact, this latter group tend
to develop a manic-depressive psychosis."
Julian JAYNES, 1977 & 1990, The Origin of Consciousness
in the
Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Chicago : Houghton Mifflin.
"A search for causal explanations takes place to "make
sense" of the world. This frequently occurs when events violate
expectations and achieve prominence.... If schizophrenia is characterised
by (a) awareness of aspects of the environment not normally attended
to and (b) a reduction of the influence of past regularities on
current perception, then abnormal causal relationships may
be inferred on the basis of a single co-occurrence."
D.HEMSLEY, 1990, in G.Huber, Idiopathische Psychosen. Stuttgart:
Schattauer.
"For Bleuler, [the underlying psychological deficit in schizophrenia]
was an abnormality of 'association', a psychological model fashionable
at the time. For C.Frith (1992, The Cognitive Neuropsychology
of Schizophrenia) it is the newly minted 'meta-representation'."
K.BARRETT, 1993, British Journal of Psychiatry 163.
"Let us call psychotics S and normals N. Then {my} theory
states that S:N = P=:P-. I have discussed a dozen or more attempts
to test this deduction (Eysenck, 1992, A Hundred Years of Personality
Research, from Heymans to Modern Times), and nearly all have
been successful. In the list of variables used to illustrate {this}
proportionality criterion, I have on purpose included several
different types of measures. One class deals with biological variables
(HLA B27, MAO; serotonin). A second deals with laboratory behaviours
(eye-tracking; dichotic shadowing; sensitivity levels). A third
is concerned with learning-conditioning variables (latent inhibition,
negative priming). Yet a fourth is concerned with psychological
variables ) creativity, hallucinatory activity). Physiological
variables (EMG, autonomic-perceptual inversion) constitute yet
a fifth set of variables. It is the variety of variables which
makes the results impressive, together with the theoretical congruence;
to obtain successful results over such a wide array of variables
suggests that the underlying hypothesis may be along the right
lines. One would have expected that Van Kampen (1993, 'A critical
evaluation of Eysenck's Psychoticism model', Eur.J.Person.)
might have mentioned this unique success story of the theory and
its associated measuring instrument, the P scale, in his evaluation,
but any such hope would have been disappointed."
H.J.EYSENCK, 1995, 'How valid is the Psychoticism scale? A comment
on the Van Kampen critique.' European Journal of Personality
9.
"The concept of cognitive inhibition is only one of
the many experimental paradigms used to investigate the states
and selectivity of processing information which have recently
been applied to the assessment of possibly creative dysfunction
in mental health (Power, 1991, Behav. Psychotherapy 19).
Incoming information has to be narrowed down, and irrelevant information
selectively excluded, a process which is postulated to occur through
a balancing of facilitatory processing of task-relevant stimuli
and the inhibition of task-irrelevant ones. Schizophrenia is postulated
to be characterized by a breakdown of this balance, in
the sense that the inhibitory part of the mechanism is now working
properly, so that the failure of inhibitory processes produces
overinclusiveness (Frith, 1979; Beech et al., 1989, Br.J.Clin.Psychol.28).
....An experimental paradigm for such cognitive inhibition is
that of negative priming....in which a distractor object
which had previously been ignored is subsequently re-presented
as the target object to be named, classified, or otherwise dealt
with. {Normally} these processes take longer than if there had
been no prior presentation. ....as Beech et al. (1990, Person.&Indiv.Diffs)
have shown, a small dose of chlorpromazine in normal subjects
significantly increased the negative priming effect, as
compared to placebo. ....[likewise] in latent inhibition [of
conditioning to a previously unreinforced CS] the link sign-significate
is counter-indicated. ....Baruch et al. (1988, J.Nerv.&Mntl
Ds) found an abolition of latent inhibition in acute schizophrenics,
but not in chronic schizophrenics or normals. ....There is a large
body of evidence that latent inhibition can be attenuated or abolished
in rats by dopamine agonists such as amphetamine, and can also
be increased with dopamine antagonists such as haloperidol and
chlorpromazine (see Lubow et al., 1992, Person.& Indiv.Diffs
13)."
H.J.EYSENCK, 1995, Genius: the Natural History of Creativity.
Cambridge University Press.
e-
"It is suggested that scales which assess
the construct of schizophrenism, or 'interpersonal aversiveness'
may be most central to Meehl's (1962) 'integrative neural deficit'
or genetic predisposition to schizotypy.... Of the four schizotypal
indicators originally suggested by Meehl, it is [arguably] 'interpersonal
aversiveness' which is most centrally relevant to schizotaxia."
A.RAINE, 1987, 'Validation of schizoid personality scales....in
a
criminal population'. British Journal of Clinical Psychology
26.
c-
"....schizophrenics' preconscious processes
can be seen as having a greater effect upon awareness, either
through a defect in the inhibition of further processing of unwanted
material, or a failure to inhibit at a preconscious level."
A.BEECH & G.CLARIDGE, 1987, British Journal of Psychology
78.
"Latent inhibition is observed when a neutral stimulus (e.g.
a light or tone) is initially exposed to a subject without reinforcement;
this pre-exposure retards subsequent learning when the stimulus
is made to signal reinforcement. Latent inhibition thus appears
to reflect a form of learned inattention.... We have recently
tested a group of schizophrenics in an auditory learning task
incorporating a masking procedure and designed to measure latent
inhibition.... The chronic group showed significant latent inhibition,
as did a group of normals (i.e. slower formation of an association
to the pre-exposed stimulus). As predicted, in the acute group
latent inhibition was disrupted."
J.A.GRAY & I.BARUCH, 1987, Behavioral & Brain Sciences
10.
"We start with the twin observations that there appears to
exist a relationship between psychopathology and genius (Richards,
1981, Genetic Psychology Monographs 103), and that close
relatives of schizophrenics (although not schizophrenics themselves)
are unusually creative (Eysenck, 1983, Roeper Review 5)....
It is also known that Psychoticism has strong genetic antecedents.
What lies between DNA and personality? Creative people and high
P scorers are characterized by a trend towards associative overinclusiveness
(as are schizophrenics); this may constitute the essential feature
of creativity, i.e. an unusually wide supply of associative ideas.
What may lie at the base of overinclusiveness? One possible cause
may be an absence of latent inhibition (Lubow, 1989, Latent
Inhibition and Conditional Attention Theory. CUP), a theory
according to which schizophrenics fail to note experienced associations
which would inhibit the calling up of a wide set of associations
to certain experimentally manipulated stimuli. High P scorers
also have been found to have little latent inhibition.... Note
that already Bleuler talked about the "loosening of associated
threads" in schizophrenia, and Lubow went on to portray such
behaviour in terms of a failure to attend to appropriate context
information.... We now have a complete chain from DNA through
dopaminergic functioning to latent inhibition, psychoticism, overinclusiveness,
creativity and genius."
H.J.EYSENCK, 1993, in J.Hettema & I.J.Deary,
Foundations of Personality. Dordrecht : Kluwer.
"Male primary school children (N=90) with a mean age of 11
years....[showed] a significant negative correlation (partial
r = -.57 after controlling for age and social desirability....
between [an] attitude to authority measure and Psychoticism."
K.RIGBY & P.T.SLEE, 1993, Personality & Individual
Differences 14.
"The performance of [Eysenck's] Psychoticism scale [in my
research on 1,095 normal volunteer subjects] is interesting to
note in the light of Eysenck's claim that this scale describes
a vulnerability to psychosis generally. The location of the P
scale on [the factor of] 'impulsive nonconformity' [and not on
'unusual experiences', 'cognitive disorganisation' or 'introvertive
anhedonia'] is consistent with its relationships to other temperamental
traits. Zuckerman (1989, Person.&Indiv.Diffs 11) described
the P dimension in a large-scale factor analysis.....and felt
that antisocial personality disorder falls at its extreme end.
In this sense, then, Eysenck's approach may have captured only
one aspect of personality relevant to psychosis. More importantly,
it may not be an aspect particularly central to the study of schizotypal
personality."
O.MASON, 1995, 'A confirmatory factor analysis of the
structure of schizotypy.' European Journal of Personality 9.
w-
"The 'inadequate personality' shows, according
to Fuselier (1981), 'ineffective and inept responses to social
and emotional and physical stress.' He has a history of losing
and is often from a poor functioning family background. He is
impulsive and will often change his demands. For example....one
[hostage-taker with an] inadequate personality [initially demanded]
the release of friends from jail and one million dollars in gold.
He settled for a sandwich and a six pack of beer."
Shirley MACLEAN, 1986, Report of Directorate of Psychological
Services, Series I, No. 25. London : Home Office, Prison Department.
"[A collation of several studies] suggests that the cognitive
impairments in schizophrenia are not due to structural defects
in the "hard wiring" or neuronal circuitry involved
in attention, learning, remembering, and thinking, but rather
involve "volitional" control processes that require
effort and attentional capacity."
P.N.TARIOT & H.WEINGARTNER, 1986,
Archives of General Psychiatry 43.
We propose that the negative signs of schizophrenia reflect
a defect in the initiation of spontaneous action, while the positive
symptoms reflect a defect in the monitoring of action."
C.D.FRITH & J.D.DONE, 1988, British Journal of Psychiatry
153.
a-
"The purpose of paranoia is....to ward off
an idea that is incompatible with the ego, by projecting its substance
into the external world."
FREUD, 1895, 'Draft H. Paranoia'.
"He alone has the key to the schizoid temperament who has
recognised that the majority of schizoids are not either oversensitive
or cold, but that they are oversensitive and cold at the same
time, and that in quite different proportions."
E.KRETSCHMER, 1925, Physique and Character.
London : Kegan, Trench & Trubner.
"....his ruthless preparedness to murder her [Miss Anne Murphy,
who was pregnant with the terrorist's child at the time] reveals
a depth of wickedness which it is not easy to grasp."
Editorial re Syria's diplomat-terrorist, Hindawi
('Syria's James Bond), The Times, 25 x 1986.
(iv) Observations about particular 'high-P-type' clinical diagnoses.
Autism
"The idea that autism-a condition in which
children are unresponsive and unable to communicate-is
a result of a mother's failure to bond to her infant has fallen
out of favour in the United States.... Family studies provide
compelling evidence for genetic involvement in the disorder:
the rate is 50 per cent higher than expected among siblings,
and higher still among twins; as many as 25 per cent of parents
have a language disorder; and 15 per cent of their siblings have
some kind of learning disability."
N.HENESON, 1987, New Scientist, 8 i.
"S.Baron-Cohen et al. (1986, Brit.J.Developmental
Psychol.) confirmed that autistic children had poor understanding
of events involving mental states.... There is at least preliminary
evidence....to suggest that a large proportion of autistic children
have a specific defect in theory of mind. The profound social
impairment characteristic of childhood autism may to some extent
be explicable in terms of this meta-representational deficit,
leaving the autistic child unable to comprehend or predict a lot
of the behaviour of others."
A.M.LESLIE, 1987, Psychological Bulletin 94.
"Most children find it easier to remember a meaningful sentence
than a list of disconnected words, but that is not true of autistic
children.... They often fail to spot repetitive patterns in perceptual
displays.... Sometimes the attention that autistic children pay
to parts at the expense of the whole actually helps them. They
are better than other children at spotting an abstract shape which
is hidden within a larger, meaningful figure."
P.BRYANT, 1989, reviewing U.Frith, Autism.
Nature 341, 5 x.
"....autism, schizophrenia and Tourette's syndrome, in addition
to involving aspects of attention and movement disorder and lateralization
anomalies, also all display commonalities of neurotransmitter
dysfunction, especially involving dopamine and serotonin."
J.L.BRADSHAW, 1995, Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive 14.
Manic-depressive disorder
"Jung conceived of depression as a regressive
state, a 'sink(ing) down into a sort of embryonic condition....',
and as expressive of an absolute dominance of the unconscious
over conscious processes.... Jung underlines the extremely erratic,
chaotic and rootless life-style of manics, as well as the association
of the disorder with alcoholism, orality and anti-social behaviour.
But he left us neither a unitary description of the psychosis
nor an interpretation of it.
Ludwig Binswanger described the disordered world of the manic-depressive
in terms of an ego dysfunction deriving from the lack of connectedness
between the normally unifying pure ego with the a priori:
transcendent categories of the transcendent ego and the experience
of the empirical ego.... In his polarities and extremities revealed
in the various versions of his story, the mythic Dionysius descriptively
mirrors the manic-depressive patient Binswanger encountered in
his clinical practice. In his unfortunate beginnings, Dionysius
enacts an archetypal version of the failed primal relationship,
with the resultant swings between the opposites and inability
to find the centre."
J. Cappiello McCURDY, 1987, Journal of Analytical Psychology
32.
Psychopathy
"....for the psychopathic youth, everyone is out
there trying to 'get over' and it is better to be exploiter than
victim."
R.SCHUSTER, 1976, International Journal of Offender Therapy
and Comparative Criminology 20.
"It is in [the] context of the other as an overt danger and
as a covert liberator that one may understand [the inconsistency
of the female psychopath] in personal relations, exemplified often
in an extremely complex sexual life in which she finds it ' better
to travel hopefully than to arrive.' Her promiscuity is compounded
of a need to be desired superficially for the power it brings,
which, in turn, is a reassurance against her fear of her own unpredictability
and consequent lack of anchorage. For such a woman, going to bed
with a man is just like talking to him amicably enough from opposite
sides of a lift door. Just as she invites entry, the doors automatically
close. She hopes and dreads that some day some superman will come
along who can open even automatic doors. So long as the dread
is dominant, she denies herself the possibility of an integrating
, maturing relationship, and the face behind the mask remains
always that of the pouting child, kept eternally smooth by the
face-cream of dissociation and amnesia."
G.A.FOULDS, 1965, Personality and Personal Illness. London
: Tavistock.
"....the hero and the psychopath are twigs from the same
branch."
D.T.LYKKEN, 1982, 'Fearlessness: its carefree charm
and deadly risks.' Psychology Today 16.
"The [idea] that psychopaths fail to learn the contingencies
of their behaviour (as Eysenck stated) is only partly true. If
psychopaths attend to behavioral outcomes, they sometimes learn
even more rapidly than normal individuals because of their tendency
to focus on a small set of environmental features.... Usually
[however], because of their characteristically tunnelled attention,
they fail to learn of the pertinent environmental cues and hence
fail to differentiate one situation from another accurately. For
example....psychopaths may interact with their wives in the same
manner they have treated prostitutes much of their life....
Various researchers and theoreticians do seem to agree that psychopaths
demonstrate an exaggerated inclination toward the perception of
environmental challenge. This tendency appears especially strong
when other people are involved."
D.M.DOREN, 1987, Understanding and Treating the Psychopath.
New York : Wiley DePublisher.
"Hope springs eternal that each criterion [for diagnosing
personality disorder, or psychopathy] will be so comprehensive
that the exact description of a behavioral characteristic will
somehow make it pathognomonic of personality disorder in the absence
of any other external criteria. This is unrealistic.... Societies
change and vary from culture, so it is unlikely that the diagnosis
of personality disorder will also vary similarly."
P.TYRER, 1988, Journal of Personality Disorders 2.
Schizophrenia
"[Schizophrenics show a failure of attentional
processing to respond to stimulus redundancy."
B.MAHER, 1983. (Cited by D.Hemsley, 1987, in H.Hafner et al.,
Search for the Causes of Schizophrenia. Heidelberg : Springer.
"....schizophrenics are impaired in the ability to accurately
decode facial expressions of emotion."
Elaine WALKER et al., 1984, British Journal of Clinical
Psychology 23.
"Schizophrenia, in its typical form, is attributable to a
disturbance in right hemisphere function."
J.CUTTING, 1985, The Psychology of Schizophrenia.
Edinburgh : Churchill Livingstone.
"It is difficult to explain the findings of a raised incidence
of left-handedness [in schizophrenics] and the relation between
left-handedness and thought disorder without hypothesizing [left-hemisphere]
brain dysfunction [as being involved in the causation of schizophrenia."
Dora S. MONOACH et al., 1988, Journal of Abnormal Psychology
97.
"....[Flor-Henry] states that it seems likely that unilateral
dysfunction and transcollosal disturbance arise together and that
schizophrenia may be state-dependent on loss of lateral cognitive
specialisation. This statement and the suggestion that schizophrenia
may be characterised by abnormal cerebral organisation is possibly
one of the few inescapable conclusions to be drawn from the data."
M.J.BIRCHWOOD et al., 1988, Schizophrenia. London
: Longman.
"A review of research....led to the suggestion that the basic
disturbance in schizophrenia is 'a weakening of the influences
of stored memories of regularities or previous input on current
perception'.... {In accordance with this, acute schizophrenic
patients are better at avoiding 'latent inhibition' and Kamin's
blocking effect.} The core cognitive abnormality may result from
a disturbance in any of the brain structures involved in the prediction
of subsequent sensory input....
Among the most prominent features of delusional thinking is an
abnormal view of the relationships between events. As Schneider
(1930) put It "meaningful connections are created between
temporarily coincident external impressions...." Similarly,
Arieti (1974) observed "patients see non-fortuitous coincidences
everywhere".... Such clinical observations may be linked
to the present model."
David R. HEMSLEY, 1993, 'A simple (or simplistic?) cognitive
model for schizophrenia'. Behaviour Research & Therapy
31.
"Numerous teams have....found that the structural and functional
abnormalities in the brains of schizophrenics tend to be concentrated
in the left hemisphere."
Phyllida BROWN, 1994, 'Understanding the inner voices.'
New Scientist, 9 vii.
"[New brain imaging results] pinpoint limbic structures such
as the cingulate gyrus as providing important routes of information
between the frontal lobe and other brain regions implicated in
schizophrenia."
M.S.BUCHSBAUM, 1995, Nature 378, 9 xi.
(v) What might be the functional advantages of Psychoticism?
{See also Quotes XVII}
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable
one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
'John Tanner', M.R.I.C. (Member of the Rich and Idle Classes),
in his 'The Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion'.
In George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman.
"The perfect distinctness of all dream-representations, which
pre-suppose absolute faith in their reality, recall the conditions
that appertain to primitive man, in whom hallucination was extraordinarily
frequent, and sometimes simultaneously seized entire communities,
entire nations. Therefore, in sleep and dreams we once more carry
out the task of early humanity."
NIETZSCHE, Human, All-Too-Human.
New York : Russell & Russell, 1964.
"Why, in the slang of the evolutionist, was [schizophrenia]
selected for? And at what period long, long ago, since [the] genetic
predisposition is present all over the world?... The selective
advantage of such genes was the bicameral mind evolved by natural
and human selection over the millennia of our early civilizations.
The genes involved, whether causing what to conscious men is [some]
enzyme deficiency or other, are the genes that were in the background
of the prophets and the 'sons of the nabiim' and bicameral man
before them.
Another advantage of schizophrenia, perhaps evolutionary, is tirelessness....
[schizophrenics] are capable of tremendous feats of endurance.
They are not fatigued by examinations lasting many hours. They
may move about day and night, or work endlessly without any sign
of being tired. Catatonics may hold an awkward position for days
that they reader could not hold for more than a few minutes. This
suggests that much fatigue is a product of the subjective conscious
mind, and that bicameral man, building the pyramids of Egypt,
the ziggurats of Sumer, or the gigantic temples at Teotihuacan
with only hand labor, could do so far more easily than could conscious,
self-reflective men."
Julian JAYNES, 1977 & 1990, The Origin of Consciousness
in the
Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Chicago : Houghton Mifflin.
"Vain and ruthlessly ambitious, [Joseph Goebbels] was a less
ostentatious spendthrift than Goering, while his numerous amours
did nothing to impoverish his infinite capacity for work. A schizophrenic,
alternating wishful thinking with hard-faced realism, he retained
Hitler's confidence to the last, and like his Führer chose
immolation for himself and his family rather than surrender."
Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 1990.
"A....line of investigation would suggest a significant correlation
between Psychoticism and creativity as measured by current creativity
(trait) tests, such as the Wallach & Kogan (1965) and Torrance
(1974) tests. Several such studies have been reported....The first
was carried out by Kidner (1978, Ph.D. thesis), in a study using
37 male and 31 female subjects, mostly students, teachers and
nurses. ....The raw correlations indicate that the index of creativity
{creativity with intelligence score subtracted} was correlated
significantly with P (r = .31). ....In another experiment,
Kidner [used] 62 subjects....P was found to correlate with acceptance
of culture (r = -.53), with the Wallach & Kogan originality
tests (values all positive, but rather lower than before) [and]
authoritarianism (-.57).... ....The only study which has failed
to find a significant correlation between P and creativity is
reported in a paper by McCrae (1987) which succeeded in finding
correlations of around .40 {between creativity measures} the personality
trait of 'openness.'"
H.J.EYSENCK, 1995, Genius: the Natural History of Creativity.
Cambridge University Press.
Epilogue
"Rawlings et al. (1994, Person.&Indiv.Diffs)....using
recorded musical excerpts....found that P is related to liking
for heavy metal music....and for dissonant {chord} triads (augmented,
diminished, atonal)."
H.J.EYSENCK, 1995, Genius: the Natural History of Creativity.
Cambridge University Press.
"....over the past twenty years, following a century of misunderstanding
and maltreatment of people with psychotic experiences, it has
gradually come to be acknowledged that psychosis is a concept
amenable to empirical investigation and also to psychological
therapy."
Carolyn JOHN, 1995, Behaviour Research & Therapy 34.
"[Van Kampen's (1993, Europ.J.Person.7)] account of
the P scale never mentions the large body of evidence supporting
its construct validity....."
H.J.EYSENCK, 1995, 'How valid is the Psychoticism scale?' Europ.J.Person.9.
|
"....in fact, things are not as simple as Eysenck suggests,
and in our original publication many criticisms are levelled at
P that Eysenck [passes] over in silence. ....Of course, there
are some odd findings that might be interpreted in line with Eysenck's
P dimension [e.g. Taylor, 1992, Amer.J.Psychiat.149], but
most of the evidence clearly points in only one direction, namely
that schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness are unrelated
[e.g. Kendler & Diehl, 1993, Schizophrenia Bull.19].
....However, it was not concluded by us that the P scale
is therefore totally invalid. Indeed, a high P score, albeit in
combination with a high N and a low E score, seemed to be related
to the schizoid personality....{because of} a component within
P, namely a component related negatively to the Big Five dimension
Agreeableness, whilst a second component, related positively to
the Big Five dimension Conscientiousness....was interpreted as
a major ingredient of the pre-endogenous-depressive personality."
D. VAN KAMPEN, 1996, 'The theory behind Psychoticism: a reply
to Eysenck.' Europ.J.Person.10. (Wiley DePublisher)
FINIS
(Compiled by C.R.Brand, Department
of Psychology, University of Edinburgh.)
For coverage of general intelligence
and other main trait differences, see:
BRAND, C.R. (1996) The g Factor.
Chichester : Wiley DePublisher.
"The nature and measurement of intelligence is a political
hot potato. But Brand in this extremely readable, wide-ranging
and up-to-date
book is not afraid to slaughter the shibboleths of modern "educationalists".
This short book provides a great deal for thought
and debate."
Professor Adrian Furnham, University College London.
The book was first issued, in February, but then withdrawn, in
April, by the 'publisher' because it was deemed to have infringed
modern canons of
'political correctness.'
It received a perfectly favourable review in Nature (May
2, 1996, p. 33).
For a Summary of the book, Newsletters
concerning the
de-publication affair, details of how to see the book for scholarly
purposes, and others' comments and reviews,
see the Internet URL sites:
http://laboratory.psy.ed.ac.uk/DOCS/crb/internet.html
http://www.webcom.com/zurcher/thegfactor/index.html
For Chris Brand's 'Get Real About Race!'-his
popular exposition of his views on race and education in the Black
hip-hop music magazine 'downlow' (Autumn, 1996)-see:
http://www.bhs.mq.edu.au/~tbates/intelligence/Brand_downlow.html
A reminder of what is available in other Sections of 'P,
B & S.'
Summary Index
for PERSONALITY, BIOLOGY
& SOCIETY
(This resource manual of quotations about
individual and group differences, compiled by
Mr C. R. Brand, is kept on the Internet at <http://cycad.com/cgi-bin/Brand/quotes/>
and in Edinburgh University Psychology Department Library.)
Pages of Introduction
3 - 11 Full Index, indicating
key questions in each Section.
12 - 14 Preface. - Why quotations? - Explanations and apologies.
15 - 51 Introduction: Questions, Arguments and Agreements in
the study of Personality.
-Some history, and a discussion of 'realism vs 'idealism.'
52 - 57 Introductory Quotes about the study of personality.
Sections
General problems
1 'Situational' vs 'personological' approaches to human
variation.
2 'Nomothetic' vs 'idiographic', 'subjective' and relativistic
approaches.
3 Personality dimensions-by factor analysis and otherwise.
4 'Superstructure' and 'infrastructure.' - The 'mind/body problem'.
5 Nature versus Nurture? - Or Nature via Nurture?
6 The role of consciousness in personality and 'multiple personality'.
7 The 'folk psychology' of personality components.
Intelligence
8 The measurement of intelligence. - Does g exist?
9 The bases of intelligence. - What is the psychology
of g?
10 The developmental origins of g differences. - The nature
and nurture of g.
11 The importance of intelligence. - The psychotelics of
g.
12 Piagetianism: Kant's last stand?
13 Cognitivism: 'The Emperor's New Mind?'
Propensities
14 Neurosis, emotion and Neuroticism.
15 Psychosis, psychopathy and Psychoticism.
16 Crime and criminality.
17 Genius and creativity.
Popular proposals - psychoanalytic, phrenological and prophylactic
18 Psychoanalysis: 'Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire'?
19 Hemispherology: a twentieth-century phrenology?
20 Psycho-social Engineering: therapy, training or transformation?
Group differences
21 Age and ageing - especially, the role of g in 'life-span
development'.
22 Psychological sex differences. - Do they exist? Must they exist?
23 Social class. - Does it matter any longer?
24 Racial and ethnic differences. - Their role in 'lifestyles'
and cultural attainments.
Ideological issues
25 The psychology of politics and ideological extremism.
26 The politics of psychologists and allied co-workers.
27 Equality and Community: the 'utopian' package of political
aims.
28 Freedom and Responsibility: the 'legitimist' package of political
aims.
Pragmatic questions
29 Carry on differentializing?
30 Carry on psycho-testing?
Appendix: Factor Analysis. - 'Garbage in, garbage
out'?
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