Bleuler’s Invention of ‘Schizophrenia’. Inner Circle Seminar 113 (29 April 2007)

Eugen Bleuler with a child

(ca. 1935)

Bleuler’s Invention of ‘Schizophrenia’

For the 150th Anniversary of Eugen Bleuler’s Birth

Anthony Stadlen
conducts
Inner Circle Seminar No. 113
Sunday 29 April 2007
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Eugen Bleuler (30 April 1857 – 15 July 1939), teacher of Jung, Binswanger, Boss and Buber, invented the term ‘schizophrenia’ in 1908. He described the new ‘disease’ in Dementia Praecox or the Group of Schizophrenias (1911), which was not translated into English until 1950. Few psychiatrists and psychotherapists appear to have read this book, but almost all speak and write as if ‘schizophrenia’ has been proved to exist and they know what it is. In today’s seminar we shall read extracts from Bleuler’s books to establish just what he meant by ‘schizophrenia’. We shall then ask what evidence he and others have offered that such a ‘disease’ exists.

Venue: Room C, Acland Building, Regent’s College, Inner Circle, London NW1
Cost: Students £77, others £99, in advance; some bursaries
Apply to: Anthony Stadlen, ‘Oakleigh’, 2A Alexandra Avenue, London N22 7XE
Tel: +44 (0) 20 8888 6857 E-mail: stadlen@aol.com