Schizophrenia, language and evolution (or the schizophrenias as logopathies) Esquizofrenia, lenguaje y evolución (o las esquizofrenias como logopatías)

Abstract

Ever since the distinction between praecox dementia and manic-depressive illness made by Kraepelin in 1899, many changes have occurred in the way these conditions and especially their boundaries are conceived. The clearest example is the extraordinary increase in the diagnoses of bipolar disease with respect to those of schizophrenia. But there have also been important changes within each one of these categories. In the first case, the separation of schizo-affective and cycloid psychoses, and in the second, the distinction between mono and bipolar disease. Then there is the description of innumerable forms of monopolar depression 1 or, on the contrary, the postulation of the existence of only one endogenousmelancholic syndrome by Tellenbach 2,3, an idea which is shall come up again, although from another methodological perspective, in the concept of major depression of DSM III. The present author thinks that this state of nosological confusion has to do, on one hand, with the improper