Mental defect
Mental defect (or - to put it more briefly - defect ) is an outdated term in psychiatric terminology. It describes a persistent state after a mental illness, which is characterized by failure and irrecoverable loss of previously existing complex mental qualities. So is z. For example, a defect means a permanent loss of intellectual abilities, or the richness of emotional life, moral qualities or individuality.
A “defect” is used in particular in the case of severe mental illnesses with a chronic course that entail an irreversible decline in mental abilities. In this sense z. B. the term defective schizophrenia is used. In contrast to the irreversible defect symptoms, the term " reversible transit syndrome " is used.
Concept formation controversies
The controversial use of the term “defect” goes back to the history of psychiatry and the assessment of chronic mental illnesses as supposedly incurable disorders. This is particularly true of the group of what were formerly known as endogenous psychoses . In the opinion of the opponents of the term, this is associated with a derogatory attitude towards the patient concerned. The term leads to therapeutic nihilism, which has thus also contributed to the politically disastrous development in connection with the euthanasia program . The opponents of the use of the term "defect" assume that the concept formation is based on one-sided mechanistic or merely organic ideas and that the soul is understood one-sidedly as the effect of an apparatus-based event, see also → machine paradigm . This tendency has already been criticized by vitalism or specifically by the Montpellier School and can therefore look back on a long tradition. Georg Ernst Stahl (1659–1734) had already protested against the one-sided mechanistic use of ideas that relate to mental life . Due to the often unreflective use of the term, the question remains open of whether it is a serious and irreversible physical defect or just a slight functional disorder of a more psychogenic nature. Often a negative meaning is implicitly assumed here. It is precisely here that psychiatry has developed a number of concepts that need to be differentiated, primarily the different psychodynamic concepts. These go z. Sometimes also from a psychological apparatus, but do not use only physical terms, but assume a mental interior space, which u. a. contains about the unconscious . The Psychodynamismus eliminates and neutralizes the controversy about the nature of spiritual powers, as is spoken only of forces in general and not specifically from the forces either in the physical or spiritual sense.
Conceptual environment
The term mental defect does not only mean a certain form of mental disorder , but also includes the associated symptoms . In the diagnosis of schizophrenia , deficiency symptoms ( negative symptoms ) are also used. It is also referred to as minus symptoms and is differentiated from plus symptoms . In classical German psychiatry and the triadic system of mental illnesses it uses , the term defect is primarily linked to the concept of organic psychosis as a physically justifiable form of illness. However, reversible state pictures must also be taken into account here (see the term functional psychoses )
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Uwe Henrik Peters : Dictionary of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology. 3. Edition. Urban & Schwarzenberg, Munich 1984; (a) to Wb.-Lemma: Defect : p. 106; (b) to Wb.-lemmas: negative symptoms : S. 352 and positive symptoms : S. 417th
- ↑ a b Hans Heinrich Wieck : Depressive tinted passage syndrome . In: Hanns Hippius , Helmut Selbach: The depressive syndrome . International Symposium, Berlin on February 16 and 17, 1968. Urban & Schwarzenberg, Berlin, Vienna 1969. pp. 458 f.
- ↑ Thomas Bock , Dorothea Buck , Ingeborg Esterer : It is normal to be different. 2nd Edition. Psychiatrie, Bonn 2000, ISBN 3-88414-206-2 , p. 12.
- ↑ Erwin H. Ackerknecht : Brief history of psychiatry. 3. Edition. Enke, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-432-80043-6 , p. 36.
- ^ Klaus Dörner : Citizens and Irre. On the social history and sociology of science in psychiatry. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1975, ISBN 3-436-02101-6 , p. 121 ff.
- ↑ Stavros Mentzos : Psychodynamic Models in Psychiatry. 2nd Edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1992, ISBN 3-525-45727-8 , pp. 13, 29 ff.
