Can schizophrenic be prevented? Empirical results obtained by the examination of schizophrenic twins and schizophrenic children.

Concrete findings indicate the possibility of preventing schizophrenia, but it cannot be too strongly emphasized that the findings only relate to certain forms of theillness. Schizophrenias running an insidiously progressive course could very seldom be obsserved in monozygotic twins. So these pairs provide evidence that forms with this course can be prevented. It is to be supposed that the close communication usually found in identical twins, prevents withdrawal from environment and in consequence prevents schizophrenia. This assumption seems to be confirmed by our observation in insidiously progressive childhood schizophrenias which accumulate in only children and sometimes break out already in early childhood while the infants, staying in a hospital or a home, are suffering lack of communication. So it seems possible to prevent these forms of schizophrenia when we succeed in providing a close contact of the child and the adolescent with an intimate friend who directs his thinking outwards and protects him from withdrawal. But, unfortunately, in cases with phasic course the provoking factors correlate with the factors preventing the insidiously progressive forms. However, in detail, not quite the same factors prevent the one forms as precipitate the others, so that we can avoid doing harm simultaneously when we succeed in doing good. Besides, we must take account of the fact that some schizophrenias running a remitting course, especially periodic catatonia, are of hereditary origin and cannot be prevent psychosocially.