Karl Leonhard
Encyclopedia
Karl Leonhard
was a German psychiatrist
, who stood in the tradition of Carl Wernicke and Karl Kleist
. He created a complex classification of psychotic illnesses called nosological.
His work covered Psychology
, Psychotherapy
, Biological psychiatry
and Biological psychology. Moreover he created a classification of Nonverbal communication
.
He was born as the sixth of eleven children, his father being a Protestant minister. His medical education (at Erlangen
, Berlin
and Munich
) was completed in 1928 and he worked as a physician at psychiatric hospitals in Erlangen
, then a year later Gabersee
and from 1936 Frankfurt am Main, to which last he was called by Karl Kleist
. During the period of the Third Reich in order to save his patients from being killed by means of the T-4 Euthanasia Program, he stopped making diagnoses that would endanger a patient. In particular he stopped making any diagnoses of schizophrenia
.
He became a professor at Frankfurt
in 1944 and a professor at Erfurt
in the Soviet zone of Germany in 1954. In 1957 he became director of the psychiatric department at the Charité Hospital linked to the Humboldt University in East Berlin
. He wanted to move back to West Germany
in the sixties, but was refused the permission by the East German authorities. As compensation he got increased support for his scientific work. During his lifetime he interviewed more than 2000 psychotic patients, latterly with Dr Sieglinde von Trostorff.
According to Helmut Beckmann
(see "Books" below), editors of Western journals rejected his papers because "they were not in conformity with the standard practice of Anglo-American psychiatry and also because he pursued without compromise his own path derived from his findings." Most of his work was not translated into English. However summaries of Leonhard's views were included by Frank Fish in his "Schizophrenia" of 1962 (2nd edition 1976 ISBN 0-7236-0334-0) and "Clinical Psychopathology" of 1967 (2nd edition 1985 ISBN 0-7236-0605-6) which were widely read, if not understood, in their day.
Today diagnosis for psychotic patients and mentally or otherwise ill persons are most commonly placed by ICD or DSM criteria.
Psychosis will in general appear as an affective disorder (e.g. psychotic depression), a form of schizophrenia
(e.g. catatonic type of schizophrenia) or a schizophrenia-like disorder, like the schizoaffective disorder
for example.
----
was a German psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
, who stood in the tradition of Carl Wernicke and Karl Kleist
Karl Kleist
Karl Kleist was a German neurologist and psychiatrist who made notable advances in descriptive psychopathology and neuropsychology. His work links to that of Carl Wernicke and Karl Leonhard. Kleist coined the terms unipolar and bipolar that are now used in the concepts of Unipolar depression and...
. He created a complex classification of psychotic illnesses called nosological.
His work covered Psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...
, Biological psychiatry
Biological psychiatry
Biological psychiatry, or biopsychiatry is an approach to psychiatry that aims to understand mental disorder in terms of the biological function of the nervous system. It is interdisciplinary in its approach and draws on sciences such as neuroscience, psychopharmacology, biochemistry, genetics and...
and Biological psychology. Moreover he created a classification of Nonverbal communication
Nonverbal communication
Nonverbal communication is usually understood as the process of communication through sending and receiving wordless messages. Messages can be communicated through gestures and touch , by body language or posture, by facial expression and eye contact...
.
He was born as the sixth of eleven children, his father being a Protestant minister. His medical education (at Erlangen
Erlangen
Erlangen is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is located at the confluence of the river Regnitz and its large tributary, the Untere Schwabach.Erlangen has more than 100,000 inhabitants....
, Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
) was completed in 1928 and he worked as a physician at psychiatric hospitals in Erlangen
Erlangen
Erlangen is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is located at the confluence of the river Regnitz and its large tributary, the Untere Schwabach.Erlangen has more than 100,000 inhabitants....
, then a year later Gabersee
Gabersee
Gabersee is a borough of the town Wasserburg am Inn in Bavaria in Germany. Gabersee was the site of a post World War II American sector displaced person camp. It is the birthplace of Carl Troll, and home to a psychiatric hospital, where Friedrich Ludwig died....
and from 1936 Frankfurt am Main, to which last he was called by Karl Kleist
Kleist
Kleist, or von Kleist, is a surname.von Kleist:*Ewald Jürgen Georg von Kleist , co-inventor of the Leyden jar*Ewald Christian von Kleist , German poet and soldier*Franz Kasimir von Kleist Prussian General...
. During the period of the Third Reich in order to save his patients from being killed by means of the T-4 Euthanasia Program, he stopped making diagnoses that would endanger a patient. In particular he stopped making any diagnoses of schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
.
He became a professor at Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
in 1944 and a professor at Erfurt
Erfurt
Erfurt is the capital city of Thuringia and the main city nearest to the geographical centre of Germany, located 100 km SW of Leipzig, 150 km N of Nuremberg and 180 km SE of Hannover. Erfurt Airport can be reached by plane via Munich. It lies in the southern part of the Thuringian...
in the Soviet zone of Germany in 1954. In 1957 he became director of the psychiatric department at the Charité Hospital linked to the Humboldt University in East Berlin
East Berlin
East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a part strongly associated with West Germany but a free city...
. He wanted to move back to West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
in the sixties, but was refused the permission by the East German authorities. As compensation he got increased support for his scientific work. During his lifetime he interviewed more than 2000 psychotic patients, latterly with Dr Sieglinde von Trostorff.
According to Helmut Beckmann
Helmut Beckmann
Professor Helmut Beckmann was a German psychiatrist. He was one of the founders of neurodevelopmental theory of schizophrenia and biologically based psychiatry in Germany....
(see "Books" below), editors of Western journals rejected his papers because "they were not in conformity with the standard practice of Anglo-American psychiatry and also because he pursued without compromise his own path derived from his findings." Most of his work was not translated into English. However summaries of Leonhard's views were included by Frank Fish in his "Schizophrenia" of 1962 (2nd edition 1976 ISBN 0-7236-0334-0) and "Clinical Psychopathology" of 1967 (2nd edition 1985 ISBN 0-7236-0605-6) which were widely read, if not understood, in their day.
Today diagnosis for psychotic patients and mentally or otherwise ill persons are most commonly placed by ICD or DSM criteria.
Psychosis will in general appear as an affective disorder (e.g. psychotic depression), a form of schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
(e.g. catatonic type of schizophrenia) or a schizophrenia-like disorder, like the schizoaffective disorder
Schizoaffective disorder
Schizoaffective disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a mental disorder characterized by recurring episodes of elevated or depressed mood, or of simultaneously elevated and depressed mood, that alternate with, or occur together with, distortions in perception.Schizoaffective disorder...
for example.
The Classification of Psychosis by Leonhard
- Clinical Pictures of Phasic Psychoses (without Cycloid Psychoses)
- Manic-Depressive IllnessBipolar disorderBipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...
- Pure Melancholia and Pure Mania
- Pure Melancholia
- Pure Mania
- Pure Depressions and Pure Euphorias
- Pure Depressions
- Agitated Depression
- Hypochondriacal Depression
- Self-Tortured Depression
- Suspicious Depression
- Apatethic Depression
- Pure Euphorias
- Unproductive Euphoria
- Hypochondriacal Euphoria
- Exalted Euphoria
- Confabulatory Euphoria
- Indifferent Euphoria
- Pure Depressions
- Manic-Depressive Illness
- The Cycloid Psychosis
- Anxiety-Happiness Psychosis
- Exited-Inhibited Confusion Psychosis
- Hyperkinetic-Akinetic Motility Psychosis
- The Unsystematic Schizophrenias
- Affective Paraphrenia
- Cataphasia (Schizophasia)
- Periodic Catatonia
- The Systematic Schizophrenias
- Simple Systematic Schizophrenias
- Catatonic Forms
- Parakinetic Catatonia
- Manneristic Catatonia
- Proskinetic Catatonia
- Negativistic Catatonia
- Speech-Prompt Catatonia
- Sluggish Catatonia
- Hebephrenic Forms
- Foolish Hebephrenia
- Eccentric Hebephrenia
- Shallow Hebephrenia
- Autistic Hebephrenia
- Paranoid Forms
- Hypochondrical Paraphrenia
- Phonemic Paraphrenia
- Incoherrent Paraphrenia
- Fantastic Paraphrenia
- Confabulatory Paraphrenia
- Expansive Paraphrenia
- Catatonic Forms
- Combined Systematic Schizophrenias
- Combined Systematic Catatonias
- Combined Systematic Hebephrenias
- Combined Systematic Paraphrenias
- Simple Systematic Schizophrenias
- Early Childhood Schizophrenias
----
Books
- Die defektschizophrenen Krankheitsbilder, Leipzig: Thieme 1936
- Classification of Endogenous Psychoses and their Differentiated Etiology, 2nd edition edited by Helmut Beckmann. New York/Wien: Springer-Verlag 1999 ISBN 3-211-83259-9
- Der menschliche Ausdruck in Mimik, Gestik und Phonik, Leipzig: Barth 1969 - 3 Aufl. Wuerzburg 1997.