COURSE AND OUTCOME OF SCHIZOPHRENIA
F. A. FREYHAN M. D.
1. Long-span observations of 2 samples of schizophrenic patients, 20 years apart, in a setting of comparative uniformity disclose duplication of hospital separations since 1940.
2. Modern clinical management accounts for this significant improvement.
3. The beneficial impact of specific therapies appears inseparable from compensatory capacities possessed by favorably responding patients.
4. The malignant pattern of chronicity could not be reliably predicted on grounds of onset or personality nor averted by therapeutic efforts.
5. The summing-up of continuous observations and the analyses of factual developments are indispensable to our knowledge of schizophrenia and to an ascertainment of progress with therapies.
