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C Scharfetter

Publications and source records attributed to C Scharfetter.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1995

[The ego/self experience of schizophrenic patients].

The self experience of schizophrenics (i.e. their ego-pathology) is conceptualized in a theoretical model of five basic dimensions of ego consciousness (identity, activity, demarcation, consistence/coherence, vitality). A systematic empirical study uses the Ego-pathology-Inventory (with 53 items, Interraterreliability Kappa 0.9, Retestreliability 0.65). The study population consists of 552 schizophrenics, 25 borderline personality disorders, 87 depressive disorders. Ego-pathology clearly differs the three diagnostic groups. Confirmatory factorial analysis allows to accept the theoretical model. Various external measurements correlate with ego pathology. Three empirical syndromes resulted from statistical search for data-structures. A series of arguments for validation of the concept allow the conclusion the the proposed ego pathology concept is a viable approach for empirically studying the experimental core of the schizophrenias.

Borderline Personality Disorder↗
PubMed1994

Investigation of gestural and pantomime performance in chronic schizophrenic inpatients.

The present study compared the performance on apraxia tests and additional motor tasks between medicated chronic schizophrenic inpatients (n = 21) and healthy subjects (n = 21). Praxis testing did not reveal a clear-cut apractic syndrome in the patient group. The most striking difference between patients and healthy controls was the more frequent use of body parts as object (BPO) by schizophrenic patients (P < 0.0003). There was no significant difference in psychopathology between subgroups classified according to their BPO performance, although a tendency towards a difference in duration of illness and the actual hospitalization period existed between BPO subgroups. Schizophrenic patients performed more poorly than controls in frontal motor tasks: sequencing, including oral sequential movements, and reciprocal innervation. Frontal motor task performance tended to be related to the negative dimension of schizophrenia in accordance with previous studies. The data do not support the assumption that BPO performance is part of a multidimensional concrete attitude in schizophrenic patients. Nevertheless, this peculiarity in motor behaviour might be a link between neurophysiology and psychopathological phenomenology in schizophrenia. We therefore suggest further investigation focusing the performance of object-related pantomime movements in schizophrenic patients.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

[Not Available].

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Germany↗
PubMed1993

[Olfactory hallucinations in depression].

Olfactory hallucinations are rarely mentioned as a symptom of depressive disorder. This paper presents a review of the literature including a conceptual clarification and epidemiological aspects with an emphasis on the significance of olfactory hallucinations for psychopathology, in particular with respect to sensory perception and body self-awareness. The close relation to the olfactory reference syndrome is pointed at. Olfactory hallucinations are considered important for the biological interpretation of affective disorders. In this regard disturbed olfactory perception can be understood as an example of disturbed brain function in the state of depression. Olfactory symptoms are shown to be elements connecting primary affective disorders with other neuropsychiatric diseases as well as with neuroanatomical and neurophysiological models. A primary role is accordingly attributed to the temporal lobe epilepsies in which olfactory hallucinations as well as affective disturbances occur. The need for further investigation in this field is pointed out.

Brain↗
PubMed1993

[Psychopathology in nunneries].

The psychiatric observations of female adepts and nuns of Christian monastic congregations, seen as in- or outpatients of a mental hospital of an order, are reported, mainly focussing on schizophrenic and schizophreniform psychoses and severe personality disorders. The patient statistics and sketches of psychopathology and the dynamics of the disorders are presented. The selection process for adepts for the monastic profession and the need for education of the responsible leaders in psychological, psychotherapeutic and psychiatric issues are considered.

Borderline Personality Disorder↗
PubMed1993

[Causality in psychiatry].

In a brief epistemological and historical review the problem of the attribution of the causal connections as one example of the construction of coherence in 'reality' is discussed. To construe causal connections is but one of our mental activities to relate events or objects, competing with other non-causal determinations: sequential, functional, teleological, statistical, dialectic. The attribution of causal connections is a valuable, but always approximative heuristic means of scientific exploration. The concurring etio-pathogenetic concepts of schizophrenias and borderline-disorders are dealt with to exemplify the actual problems in psychiatric research.

Brain↗
PubMed1993

[Eros therapeutikós. Love and ethics in psychotherapy].

Love in the deepest and highest level, as conceived by Platon in his symposium, is considered in the context of occidental philosophy's "feelings of sympathy" (Max Scheler), empathy and the mystic feeling of cosmic oneness. The buddhistic concepts of loving kindness (metta) reaches its highest level in the Bodhisattva of Mahayana. Love is an essential element of the development of knowledge. Love and knowledge increase the awareness of a universal responsibility. Therapeutic love is an essential medium of any humane therapy and can be cultivated in the mental personal development of the therapist.

Ethics, Medical↗
PubMed1992

[Responsibility and guilt from the psychiatric/psychotherapeutic viewpoint].

The sense of universal responsibility of the individual is based on a religious (in a pre- and overconfessional sense) relationship to a transpersonal whole. It is a prerequisite for the philosophical discourse on ethics. The special responsibility of the psychiatrist in his anthropological constructs, his concepts of illness and disease, and his method of treatment are discussed. The patient's being responsible (at least partly) for falling ill, his coping with his disease and impairment, his cooperation during treatment and also the pathology of inadequate guilt feelings and deficits are dealt with. Taking the blame as part of the human condition may be seen as an indicator of a mature development of a person.

Defense Mechanisms↗
PubMed1990

On the prognostic relevance of ego-psychopathology in schizophrenia: a 2.5-year follow-up.

Based on a calibration sample comprising 552 schizophrenic patients, ego-psychopathology was modelled in terms of three empirical scales. For this purpose, a special assessment instrument (EPIS) had been designed which measures the phenomena of self-experience in psychotic individuals. Within the scope of these investigations, a 2.5-year follow-up study was carried out with 85 schizophrenic patients. The principal goal of this study was to test the predictive power of typical patterns of self-experience with respect to social functioning. In order to analyse the homogeneity of the data multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis was employed. The results derived from the initial interview suggested a partitioning of the population into two extreme groups termed, according to our model, high-risk and low-risk cases. The predictive power of ego-psychopathology with regard to the social situation was then tested by comparing the outcome of both groups after 2.5 years. The analyses yielded no indication that there is a strong relationship between ego-psychopathology and social adaptation. Only a tendency could be found suggesting that subjects with few ego-psychopathological disturbances have a better occupational behaviour.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1988

Familial syndrome patterns in schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, mania, and depression.

A major problem with studies in the field of quantitative genetics is that of phenotypical heterogeneity. In particular, such heterogeneities show up in psychiatric investigations: index cases often tend to display more severe forms of disorders than the respective affected relatives. The principal goal of the present investigation was to test the phenotypical equivalence of the two populations of index cases and their affected relatives. Our analyses were based on 269 hospitalized patients with functional psychoses and 350 affected first degree relatives. As opposed to the majority of earlier investigations in which phenotypes were uniquely defined by diagnoses, phenotypes were represented in this study by a list of 22 psychiatric syndromes. Accordingly, multivariate statistical procedures were applied to analyze the intrinsic properties of the empirical lists. The results showed that typical syndrome patterns clearly appeared in both populations and that the phenotypical equivalence of the corresponding population sample sets lay between satisfactory and good. Furthermore, it was possible to select phenotypically homogeneous and reproducible subsets on the basis of the 22 syndromes. These subgroups can be used as basic material to study the genetic modes via current models from quantitative genetics. Nevertheless, our analyses revealed no clear breeding true of either affective disorders or schizophrenia.

Bipolar Disorder↗
PubMed1987

Morbid risks of subgroups of affective disorders: some methodological and empirical results.

Based on two independently ascertained family studies, the problem of analysing disorders with variable age of onset has been investigated by means of survival analysis. This method of approach results in empirical risk functions which can be used directly as weights for age correction in the analysis of pedigrees. The main interest of the present investigation has been focused on the reproducibility of such risk functions and on their specificity with respect to clinical diagnosis. For this purpose, one family study was referred to as a calibration sample for estimating empirical risk functions, whereas, the second family study served as a test sample in order to test the hypotheses under discussion. As it turned out, the empirically derived functions from both the calibration and test samples are indeed comparable, thus suggesting that, for sufficiently representative calibration samples, the differences between the two populations of (1) affected and (2) susceptible individuals may be less important than expected. As to the specificity of these risk functions, the underlying diagnostic structure of the calibration samples (as represented by four diagnostic subgroups) could be characterized by distinct types of risk functions, each of which, in addition, reflects the severity of the respective affective disorder.

Bipolar Disorder↗
PubMed1986

[Suicide of schizophrenic patients].

The suicide-mortality of schizophrenics is between 1-5% (max. 10%) according to the literature and own studies. Suicide may take place during the whole course of the disorder. It happens mainly outside the hospital. Most of the suicidal schizophrenics are depressed, suffer from resignation, deny their illness and are noncooperative in treatment programs. Male patients of medium age, severely disturbed premorbid personality and hostile split family atmosphere are further criteria of increased suicide danger.

Cross-Sectional Studies↗
PubMed1985

A family hereditary study of post-partum "psychoses".

A group of 80 women suffering from a severe psychiatric post-partum disorder and hospitalized for the first time in their lives was followed up between 4 and 35 years later. Besides the further evolution of psychic health of the patients, the occurrence of endogenous (i.e., functional) psychoses in first degree relatives was investigated. A global morbidity risk for endogenous psychoses of 10.9% was found, affective psychosis accounting for two-thirds of secondary cases. Subdivision of the sample according to the criterion of absence or presence of further psychotic episodes unrelated to childbirth revealed that first degree relatives of patients with exclusively puerperal decompensations had a low morbidity risk of 2.0%, but relatives of patients with later nonpuerperal episodes of illness one of 15.2%, the difference being statistically significant (P less than 0.002). This suggests that severe psychiatric disorders occurring exclusively in the post-partum period are nosologically distinct from those followed by nonpuerperal psychotic episodes of illness. Only the latter seem to be related to the traditionally recognized subgroups of endogenous psychoses.

Adult↗
PubMed1985

A family study of psychotic symptomatology in schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, unipolar depression, and bipolar disorder.

An evaluation was made of schizophrenics (140), schizoaffectives (40), unipolar depressives (59), and bipolars (30), and their relatives who had a chart diagnosis of psychosis or depressive neurosis. The purpose was to determine whether the psychosis (delusions and hallucinations) was transmitted independently of the illness itself. If this were true, there would be an excess of pairs of probands and relatives both positive for psychosis and pairs of relatives and probands both negative for psychosis when compared to relatives and probands who were not concordant for the variable. This was found to be true in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder and is probably the result of the simple transmission of an illness which includes the presence of psychotic symptoms in the definition. Thus, this would be a manifestation of the genetic propensity in schizophrenia. For the affective disorders there was no evidence that psychotic probands were more likely than the nonpsychotic to have psychotic relatives. So far the reason why some patients have psychosis and others not in the affective disorders remains unexplained.

Bipolar Disorder↗
PubMed1985

The diagnostic value in assessing mood congruence in delusions and hallucinations and their relationship to the affective state.

An examination was carried out on 140 schizophrenics, 34 schizoaffective manics, 6 schizoaffective depressives, 59 unipolars, and 30 bipolars to determine the variables of affective states and mood-congruent and mood-incongruent psychotic symptoms. These patients had been admitted to a hospital in Zürich and were systematically diagnosed, using both clinical and computer-derived systems. Forty-eight patients (18%) had both mood-congruent and incongruent psychotic symptoms. However, the affective disorders usually showed mood-congruent symptoms and the schizophrenics the mood-incongruent types. The schizoaffectives were likely to show both types. There was a marked dissociation between affective states and mood congruence in the schizophrenics. Though the majority of these patients showed depressive syndromes, they were quite unlikely to have mood-congruent symptoms. Likewise, 25% of the schizophrenics had manic-like syndromes, which contrasted with the fact that they rarely had mood-congruent psychotic delusions and hallucinations.

Adult↗
PubMed1985

Stability of psychotic symptomatology (delusions, hallucinations), affective syndromes, and schizophrenic symptoms (thought disorder, incongruent affect) over episodes in remitting psychoses.

A study was made on 140 schizophrenics, 40 schizoaffectives, 59 unipolar depressives, and 30 bipolar affective disorder patients in order to determine the quality of psychopathology over multiple episodes. The schizoaffectives were the most likely to have multiple episodes. Among the schizophrenics, there were few episodes that lacked psychotic symptoms, but almost half of the episodes for the schizoaffectives were associated with an absence of psychotic symptoms. Three-quarters of the patients with unipolar depression and bipolar illness showed no psychotic symptoms either congruent or noncongruent. There was a striking finding that all diagnoses were associated with a decrease in psychotic symptoms over time. These psychotic symptoms (delusions and hallucinations) became particularly more scarce among the schizoaffectives, unipolars, and bipolars. There was a 50% to 67% decrease of episodes with psychotic symptoms as more episodes occurred. For schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder the first ten episodes were very similar to each other for affective syndromes, formal thought disorder and/or incongruent affect, and delusions and hallucinations. It was not until much time had passed that the symptom pictures changed.

Adult↗