Leonhard and the classification of psychomotor psychoses in childhood and adolescence

The classification 'psychomotor psychoses' goes back to Wernicke, Kleist and Leonhard. The incidence of psychomotor deficiencies is a typical trait. The motility psychoses (a form of the cycloid psychosis), the periodical catatonia (a form of unsystematic schizophrenias) and the catatonic forms of systematic schizophrenias belong to the group of 'psychomotor psychoses'. To some extent they correspond with the 'catatonic type' according to DSM-III (295.2). The number of children and adolescents with psychomotor psychoses, who were examined by Leonhard and Neumärker have shown beside different clinical-psychopathological features a significant difference as regards the age-related manifestation of each psychomotor psychosis.