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Looseness of Associations in Acute Schizophrenia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Frank Reilly ,
Martin Harrow ,
Gary Tucker ,
Donald Quinlan  and
Andrew Siegel
Frank Reilly
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar Street, New Haven, Connecticut, 06510
Martin Harrow
Affiliation:
Michael Reese Hospital and Department of Psychiatry, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Gary Tucker
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, New Hampshire
Donald Quinlan
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine
Andrew Siegel
Affiliation:
University of Vermont School of Medicine, Burlington, Vermont
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Summary

To study looseness of associations and other theoretically relevant variables of speech pathology, 51 acute psychiatric patients, including 26 schizophrenics, were studied at the acute phase of their disorder by means of a free verbalization interview. The results on these 51 patients during the acute period were.

  1. 1. There were clear differences between the schizophrenic patient group and the control patient group, the overall index of deviant verbalizations being significant at the .001 el.

  2. 2. Many types of looseness were found in non-schizophrenic patients as well as in schizophrenics. Except at the very mildest levels, however, the variants of overt looseness were strikingly more frequent in occurrence and severe in degree in the schizophrenic group (p < .01).

  3. 3. Gaps in communication, vagueness of ideas and blocking, though present to some degree in our control group, were much more common in the schizophrenic sample (p < .001).

  4. 4. In the control group of patients, private meanings (including neologisms), repetition and perseveration were extremely rare, and current delusional thinking virtually non-existent. Private meanings and current delusional thinking were conspicuously present in the schizophrenic sample; repetition and perseveration were present to a mild degree in this acute schizophrenic sample.

  5. 5. Schizophrenic patients tend to show more looseness of associations when faced with a request to talk about topics not related to their illness.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 127 , Issue 3 , September 1975 , pp. 240 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1975 

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