[Psychopathology of poetry writing of schizophrenic patients while ill]

On the basis of a psychopathological analysis of over 300 poems written by 29 schizophrenics in the state of the defect some characteristic features associated with the disturbances in the sphere of thought were revealed. The verses written by the patients showed a strange interpretation of the events being described, an unnecessary accentuation of minor details, a striving for formal novelty, peculiar plays on words, various abbreviations underlinings, as well as an amorphous character, absence of key points, inconsistency of the plot. In a number of cases the poverty of the content was combined with grandiloquent pathetics. Characteristic of the verses written by the schizophrenics was emotional inadequacy. In the author's opinion, verses of schizophrenic patients in the state of the defect can serve as a differential diagnostic criterion of the defective states.