Issue 40 (Spring 2009) Pages-33-41

This article employs recent empirical data to confirm Eugen Bleuler’s view that delays between the appearance o f psychotic symptoms and treatment are harmful. It also bears out Bleuler’s less ominous view o f Kraepelin’s dementia praecox by demonstrating that when delays are reduced patients are less unwell.

“The sooner the patients can be restored to an earlier life and the less they are allowed to withdraw into the world of their own ideas, the sooner do they become socially functional” (Eugen Bleuler, 1908).1 Emil Kraepelin distinguished manic-depressive psychosis from dementia praecox on the basis that those with manic depression had a later onset, and that people usually recovered between episodes, whereas those with dementia praecox followed an essentially downhill course….