Paranoid and nonparanoid schizophrenia: drive dominated thinking and thought pathology at two phases of disorder.

A sample of acutely hospitalized paranoid and nonparanoid schizophrenics and another sample of paranoid and nonparanoid schizophrenics studied at follow-up were compared on measures of cognitive functioning, disordered thinking, and drive dominated thinking using the WAIS, the Rorschach test, the object sorting test, and an overall index of outcome functioning (N = 67). Results suggested that cognitive regression is related more to acute psychological disturbance than to the presence or absence of paranoia, that the presence of socialized drive dominated thinking during the acute phase is related to better posthospital adjustment at follow-up, and that paranoid schizophrenics show better cognitive functioning after the acute phase. Results did not support the theory that suggests an etiological relation between homosexual conflict and paranoia.