ABSTRACT
Psychiatrists spend much of their time and energy trying to convince members of the public and lay media that schizophrenia has nothing to do with “split-personality”, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, or any other popular misconception. The term “schizophrenia” was coined by Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler (Bleuler, 1911/1950) to denote a splitting of psychic functions, for example the separation of thought and affect, and the loosening of associations between thoughts. In descriptive terms, schizophrenia may be seen as more of a disintegration than mere splitting. The disintegration occurs at all levels of cognitive function but, uniquely amongst neuropsychological disorders, its most obvious effects are at the highest, supra-modal, integrative levels of cognition.
