Psychiatric diagnoses are powerfully influenced by the contexts in which patients are found and the expectations of diagnosticians. The observations of Millon, Spitzer, and Weiner on Rosenhan's "On Being Sane in Insane Places" (AA 521 951) were examined for the implications they held for the meanings of sanity and insanity. (Editor/RK)

Four times during a 20-month period 33 schizophrenics were given a psychiatric interview (to ascertain clinical status) and the Rorschach. Subjects not receiving medication showed more evidence of regression and recovery as their clinical status either declined or improved than did subjects receiving medication. (Author)

Research supported by Grants MH-10191, MH-12273, and MH-08004 from the National Institute of Mental Health.

Presented is research to support the orthomolecular rather than the psychodynamic approach to treating schizophrenia, psychoses, and allied disorders in children. The orthomolecular approach, also known as orthomolecular psychiatry, is reported to involve the administration of megavitamins (following a study to determine biochemical needs),…

Objective: To examine whether first-episode psychosis patients with onset during adolescence (ages 15-18) differ significantly from those with young-adult onset (ages 19-30). Method: Consecutive patients presenting with first-episode psychosis (N = 242) were assessed for demographic and illness characteristics such as duration of untreated…

Objective: Weight gain is a serious side effect of atypical antipsychotics, especially in childhood. In this study, the authors examined six weight gain-related hormones in patients with childhood-onset schizophrenia (COS) after 6 weeks of clozapine treatment. Method: Fasting serum samples for 24 patients with COS and 21 matched healthy controls…

Objective: The objective of the present study is to replicate findings in first-episode psychosis reporting a smaller volume in brain structures in a population with adolescent onset. Method: Magnetic resonance imaging studies were performed on 23 psychotic adolescents (12-18 years old, 17 males, 6 females) consecutively admitted to an adolescent…

Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders are associated with high degrees of impairment and often respond inadequately to pharmacotherapy alone. In recent years, numerous clinical trials have been published showing the benefits of adjunctive cognitive behavior therapy for treating psychosis. However, research in this area has been hampered by…

Some researchers have attempted to connect suicide to a general history of mental illness; others have searched for diagnosis-free suicide risk factors; and still others have argued that different risk profiles may emerge for different diagnoses. In addition to these issues, it appears that suicide completers and suicide attempters show somewhat…

Research shows a relationship between diagnoses of schizophrenia among twins. It was studied whether information that a twin was schizophrenic would bias diagnoses. Such information almost doubled the rater's estimates of probability of schizophrenia in a hypothetical case history. (NG)

Desensitization or assertive training or both were applied to hospitalized schizophrenics who displayed phobias, lack of interpersonal assertiveness, or both. In none of the patients did desensitization produce any reduction of avoidance of the feared object. The assertive training produces minimal improvement in two patients. (Author)

Examines the relationship between relevant clinical symptoms and the predictability of language utterances in schizophrenia. Specifically, investigates the sensitivity of the Cloze procedure to various modes of language response, attempting to detect differences between language samples written by schizophrenics and controls. Analyzes experimental…

Objective: To examine prevalence rates of psychopathology in children with velocardiofacial syndrome (VCFS). Method: One hundred fifty-four children ages 6 to 15 participated in our between-group design with three samples, 84 children with VCFS (37 girls, 47 boys), 32 sibling controls (18 girls, 14 boys), and 38 community controls (12 girls, 26…