MENTAL ILLNESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 37, 13 February 1930, Page 24

MENTAL ILLNESS.

SHYNESS IS BLAMED.

FORMER "MODEL" CHILDREN.

HOW DEMENTIA PRAECOX DEVELOPS.

Dementia praecox very frequently results, from conditions found in the seclusive, sensitive person with few friends who has been a "model of behaviour in his childhood," according -to Dr. Karl M. Bowman of Boston, one of the speakers at the closing session of the annual meeting of the American Association for research in nervous' and mental disease, Dr. Bowman told of a four-year-old study conducted in the Boston Psychopathic Hospital with funds provided by the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Foundation among dementia praecox patients. The study will continue for at least another year, he said, and although not complete, tentative findings have emphasised that "shy and sensitive individuals with a feeling of inferiority very frequently are a type who later break down with dementia praecox." * One current view among those who attempt to determine the reaso*n for a development of the disease, Dr. Bowman said, is that persons who feel "inadequate to deal with life" often construct a fantastic world of their own and later become mentally unbalanced. Vigilance as the motor pattern and inner meaning in schizophrenia (demenlia praecox) behaviour was described by Dr. Smith Ely Jelliffe of New York, who held that all persons suffering from the disease have super-vigilance. They believe, he said, that the whole world is hostile and therefore they are constantly on the defence. He compared the hostile impulses of a person suffering from the disease in response to the hostile impulses of other persons whom he meets. If he breaks through on the aggressive side, Dr. Jelliffe said, he is likely to run amuck and commit murder, whereas if he draws back he might commit suicide. Dr. Walther Spielmeycr, of Munich, thought dementia praecox was a definite organic brain disease, while other speakers, in discussing his paper, contended that there were no organic findings in the brain on which the disease could be based. There was also the belief that there was an organic basis, but that technical methods were not yet capable of finding it.. Dr. Gregory Zilborg, of White Plains, told of a detailed study of a pateint with dementia praecox at Bloomingdale Hospital. He saw some light in the reatment of the disease. The patient, .•p,.„rWl. had been stabilised to the extent that she was able to return to her family and resume her associations with a social group.