ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the arguments in favour of a particular view of the schizophrenic disorders, namely one that tries to steer a path between conceptualizing them as either purely biochemical diseases or as entirely psychologically determined reactions. Given a 'normal variant' view of schizophrenia, its behavioural analysis can, of course, be undertaken at any level of description—biochemical, psychophysiological, or social/psychological. The germ of a nervous typological description of the schizophrenias was contained in some of Pavlov's own speculations about their pathogenesis, his suggestion being that different kinds of psychotic reaction depend upon abnormal weakening or strengthening of the cortical inhibitory processes. More sophisticated theorizing and methodology, however, have helped to sustain models of schizophrenia that incorporate the notion of arousal, two developments in the field being of particular interest. Given the value of the psychophysiological approach, a question that remains is whether the disturbances of function seen in schizophrenic patients represent the nervous typological basis of a continuous personality dimension.
