ABSTRACT

In contrast to Process Schizophrenia, the onset of Reactive Schizophrenia is relatively sudden and abrupt, and the duration of the illness is shorter, that is, at least one month but less than six months. The unusual feature of Schizoaffective disorder is that it appears to consist of two co-equal components indicative of complication in Anxiety Neurosis—a Reactive Schizophrenic aspect and a depressive to a new threat instigating massive collapse of the patient's self-esteem. The relatively rare occurrence of Schizophrenia in children supports the hypothesis that the process type is the outcome of maturational failure relative to the preadolescent and adolescent periods. Delusional disorder is marked by the presence of a more or less plausible, credible, understandable, and persistent delusion that is not bizarre. On the whole, despite the indications of better reality testing than in Schizophrenia, there is still probably sufficient impairment of reality testing to regard the disorder as a psychosis, although less so, of course, than Schizophrenia.