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The early development of Kraepelin's ideas on classification: a conceptual history

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

G. E. Berrios  and
R. Hauser
G. E. Berrios*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge
R. Hauser
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge
*
1 Address for correspondence: Dr G. E. Berrios, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Addenbrooke's Hospital (Level 4), Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 2QQ.
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Synopsis

Psychiatry still lives in a Kraepelinian world and scholarship on the work of Kraepelin has consequently been unhistorical. Selective exegesis of the various editions of his textbook has led to a rigid view of his contribution. However, Kraepelin lived and wrote during an important period of European intellectual history and his work can only be understood against this background. This paper analyses the development of his views in terms of the ‘Research Programme’ he planned early in his life and whose objective was the creation of a stable description and classification of the psychoses. This Kraepelin eventually achieved by longitudinally studying patient cohorts in terms of methodological criteria such as illness course and incurability. In the event, this methodology allowed him to identify by correlation ‘clinical pictures’ that both represented the ‘essence’ of the disease and provided a taxonomic criterion. Although avowedly atheoretical, Kraepelin thus managed to construct (influenced by Kahlbaum and Wundt) an empirical support for his Kantian categorization of the psychoses. A discussion of the cultural variables that moulded these ideas is included.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , November 1988 , pp. 813 - 821
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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