French views on positive and negative symptoms: a conceptual history.

The history of the positive/negative terminology, as applied to psychiatric symptoms, can be divided into an early period of original meanings, a second one of French elaboration, and the current revival. This report addresses issues concerning the meaning, referent, and nature of the link between the positive and the negative as dealt with in French publications by Ribot, Janet, de Clérambault, Nayrac, Von Monakow and Mourgue, and Ey. It is shown how these authors modified the old Reynoldian terminology to meet ongoing epistemological needs, and in doing so exhausted the conceptual permutations through which the positive/negative dichotomy can be put. To render their views intelligible, the historical origin of concepts such as evolutionism, Jacksonian, inhibition, psychological automatism, and synchrony and diachrony is briefly mentioned. It is suggested that the French writers helped to bridge the gap between Reynolds and the present, but that the conceptual subtlety that characterized their work has not been matched by the leaders of the current revival.