The pre-psychotic personality in dementia praecox

Abstract

A hundred consecutive navy admissions diagnosed dementia praecox have been studied. Only 28 per cent had pre-psycchotic personalities characterized by introversion; 35 per cent showed distinct extroversion; and 37 per cent were ambivert, or showed a mixture of the two traits. No particular diagnostic subtypes seem to be related to either personality trait. It appeared that from six to nine months after admission 61 per cent of the total had been discharged, 9 per cent as recovered, 23 per cent as socially recovered, and 27 per cent as improved. Extroverts showed, approximately, a 10 per cent better recovery rate than introverts, while catatonics showed only about 25 per cent of failure to recover compared to 39 per cent of the total. However, all figures presented need to be considered with great caution as to their significance in view of the relatively small number. Most significantly,the results of the study are not consistent with the conventional idea that a majority of schizophrenics have introvert pre-psychotic personalities.