ABSTRACT
Therapeutic and rehabilitative programmes have spread remarkably in recent years, aimed at alleviating the severe personal, familial and social consequences that can occur with psychoses, especially schizophrenia. Substantial progress has been made in understanding the biological, psychological and social determinants of psychosis at different levels of complexity:
1 The view of schizophrenia as a syndrome has been based on two main streams: Kraepelin (1919) identi®ed a single-disease model mainly on the basis of course and outcome features; Bleuler (1911) was more focused on `primary' or `essential' symptomatologic features. Modern nosographies, DSM-IV-TR and ICD-10, utilize both streams. Categorical approaches could not, however, identify a paradigmatic nucleus as concerns the psychopathologic manifestation of what Schneider (1980) describes as schizophrenia. Modern genetic ®ndings and clinical experience are now moving strongly towards the concept of a psychosis spectrum, and it is looking increasingly possible that this will form the basis of the relevant section of DSM-V (Kingdon et al., 2007).
