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Families with Identical Twins Discordant for Schizophrenia

Some Relationships between Identification, Thinking Styles, Psychopathology and Dominance-Submissiveness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Loren R. Mosher
Affiliation:
Center for Studies of Schizophrenia, Clinical Research Branch, Division of Extramural Research Programs, National Institute of Mental Health, 5454 Wisconsin Avenue, Chevy Chase, Maryland. Formerly Clinical Associate, Section on Twin and Sibling Studies, Clinical Investigations, Adult Psychiatry Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
William Pollin
Affiliation:
Section on Twin and Sibling Studies, Clinical Investigations, Adult Psychiatry Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
James R. Stabenau
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Hartford, Connecticut. Formerly Research Psychiatrist, Section on Twin and Sibling Studies, Clinical Investigations, Adult Psychiatry Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland

Extract

Recent clinical studies of families with schizophrenic offspring have reported a variety of abnormalities, some of which—such as abnormalities of individual development, family roles and cognitive processes—appear to relate to the development of schizophrenia in a given child. The precise nature and mechanism of these possible relationships, however, have not yet been definitively established. It is to this end that we have been studying a series of families with identical twins discordant for schizophrenia. Previous reports have described the sample, methodology, and findings with regard to life history differences between the schizophrenic and non-schizophrenic twins (Pollin et al., 1965, 1966), biological variables (Stabenau et al., 1968, 1969; Stabenau and Pollin, 1967b, 1968a), parental illness (Guggenheim et al., 1969), and the interaction of constitutional and psychological variables (Pollin and Stabenau, 1967, 1968, and Stabenau and Pollin, 1967a). This paper describes an attempt to further clarify the relationships among four variables in our sample of families: (a) psychopathology; (b) identification; (c) thinking and ‘cognitive’ style; and (d) dominance-submissiveness.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1971 

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