phrenia he found that on one occasion forty-one per cent., on another twenty-three per cent, of the reaction words referred to the patients' environment. Heilbronner considers this circumstance as an evidence for the fact that the perseverations are derived from the "vacuum," i. e., they are due to a deficiency of new ideas. I can confirm this observation from my own experience. Theoretically it would be interesting to know in what relationship this manifestation stands to the Sommer-Leupoldt symptom of "Benennen und Abtasten" (name and touch).
New and independent views on the psychology of dementia præcox are brought forth by Otto Gross.[1] He proposes the expression dementia sejunctiva for the name of the disease. The reason for this name is the disintegration of consciousness in dementia præcox, hence the sejunction of consciousness. The idea of sejunction Gross naturally takes from Wernicke. He could just as well have taken the older synonymous idea of dissociation (Binet, Janet). Fundamentally, dissociation of consciousness means the same thing as Gross's disintegration of consciousness. By accepting the idea of sejunction we have only a new term of which psychiatry has certainly enough. Dissociation according to the French school is a weakness of consciousness due to the splitting off of one or a series of ideas. They separate themselves from the hierarchy of the conscious ego and begin a more or less independent existence.[2] The hysteria doctrine of Breuer and Freud was developed on this foundation. According to the more recent formulations of Janet, dissociation is the result of "abaissement du niveau mental" which destroys the hierarchy and either favors or effects the origin of automatisms.[3] What automatisms are freed is most beautifully shown by Breuer and Freud.[4] The application made by Gross of this doctrine to dementia præcox is new and important. The funda-
- ↑ Gross: Über Bewusstseinszerfall. Monatschr. f. Psych, und Neurol. p. 45.—Idem: Beitrag zur Pathologic des Negativismus. Psych.-neur. Wochenschr., 1903, Nr. 26.—Idem: Zur Nomenklatur "Dementia sejunctiva." Neurol. Centr.-Bl., 1906, Nr. 26.—Idem: Zur Differentialdiagnostik negativistischer Phänomene. Psych.-neurol. Wochenschrift, 1906, Nr. 37, und 38.
- ↑ See the fundamental work of Janet: L'automatisme psychologique.
- ↑ Janet: Les Obsessions.
- ↑ Studien über Hysteric.
