Am J Psychiatry 1979; 136:293-296
Copyright © 1979 by American Psychiatric Association
Schizophrenic thought disorders: bizarre associations and intermingling
M Harrow and M Prosen
The authors assessed bizarre verbalizations elicited from 37 schizophrenic
and 16 nonschizophrenic patients. Interviews with subjects indicated that
much bizarre schizophrenic language results from patients intermingling
material from past and current experiences into their verbalizations. This
intermingled material comes from many different problem areas rather than
one central emotional complex. It does not arise from emotional
overresponsiveness, overinvolved thinking, or delusional ideation. Two
factors hypothesized as responsible for bizarre schizophrenic language are
the schizophrenic's monitoring problems and difficulty maintaining
perspective about his own behavior.
