[The effect of psychosocial factors in schizophrenia. Theoretical and practical-therapeutic consequences]

The author first comments on the interaction of heredity and environmental factors and the need for an integrative psycho-social-biological model to understand all kinds of psychiatric disturbances. He then gives a selective presentation of research done in the last 20 to 30 years which clearly demonstrate the influence of psychosocial factors on schizophrenia. In the authors' multifactor scheme the above mentioned psycho-social-biological interactions in the premorbid, acute and chronic phases of the illness are shown. Based on the organisational integrating influences of the affects on the way of thinking according to the concept of "affect logic" he concludes that primarily emotional factors which secondarily influence the way of thinking play an important part in the development of schizophrenia. From this point of view schizophrenia could be classified as an "affective psychosis" sui generis (like mania and depression). Various consequences in the field of psychotherapy, sociotherapy and pharmacotherapy ensue.