Abstract
The diagnostics and classification of the delusion of schizophrenics in DSM-IV-TM as well as in the AGP-system are largely based on Jaspers’ definition of delusion as pathologically falsified judgements. The following differences to Jaspers concept of delusion are shown: 1. Contrary to the general definition of schizophrenic delusion in DSM-IV-TM as enormous beliefs usually involving misinterpretations of perceptions on experiences according to Jaspers pathologically falsified judgements as a secondary product belong to later stages of delusion. Delusional atmosphere and delusional perception appearing in primary delusion are in Jaspers’ view characterized by an immediate, intuitive knowledge of the meaning. 2. Jaspers’ differentiation between original primary delusional experiences and the judgements based on these is not considered in DSM-IV-TM. 3. The phenomenal specificity of Jaspers’ criteria of delusion, showing itself not only in quantitative but also in qualitative aspects is not sufficiently expressed in the manual. 4. The comprehensively altered consciousness of reality in primary delusional experiences points to an alteration of s.c. existential a prioris (Kraus 2012) which is, in our opinion, of constitutive significance for the phenomena of schizophrenic delusion.
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Notes
- 1.
All page numbers marked with “own translation” relate to our own translation of Allgemeine Psychopathologie (1965) with the original page numbers. English translations of Jaspers’ General Psychopathology of Hoenig & Hamilton (1959/1997) are marked with “HH” and the page number.
- 2.
This is the original title of Chapter B of Paragraph 4, translated and shortened by Hoenig and Hamilton (1997). Primary delusions leave out the most important “experiences” (HH p. 82).
- 3.
Whether there are possibly different meanings of primary delusional experiences is a topic that was recently discussed extensively by Gorsky (2012a, 2012b) and by Stanghellini (2012). For us it is decisive that the “contents of delusional ideas” (HH p. 80) resulting from false judgements of primary experiences are “a secondary product” (HH p. 80).
- 4.
This is particularly the case for so-called “experiences of being made” (“Erlebnisse des Gemachten”).
- 5.
“Character of judgements” is left out in the translation of Hoenig and Hamilton.
- 6.
Because the delusional ideas as falsified judgement are based in the pathological primary experiences, Jaspers speaks also of “pathologically falsified judgements” (p. 80). This does not mean, as cognitivists sometimes suppose, that falsified judgements are as such pathological.”
- 7.
Hoenig and Hamilton omitted in their translation (HH p. 100) the decisive suffixes “urteilsmäßig”.
- 8.
“völlig” (Jaspers 1959).
- 9.
The translation Hoenig and Hamilton omitted “experiences” in the title of this chapter speaking only of “primary delusions” and, not as Jaspers does, of “primary delusional experiences.”
- 10.
translated: “cannot really appreciate these quite alien modes of experience. They remain largely incomprehensible, unreal and beyond our understanding” (HH p. 98).
- 11.
When Jaspers speaks of the world of schizophrenics, this is never meant in the sense of a uniform schizophrenic world; there are always many worlds.
- 12.
When Jaspers speaks of Dasein, this is meant in a more concrete, not categorial sense, particularly not in the sense of Heidegger (1963). Thus, also when he speaks of “Daseinsverwandlung,” this is not in the sense of a “transformation of one’s existence” (Jaspers 1959/1997, p. 592). Only in the context of border situations (“Grenzsituationen”) unchangeable situations of “Dasein,” he comes near to an understanding of Dasein like that of daseinsanalytic authors when he maintains that in psychopathy, neuroses, psychoses we have to do not only with “deviances from a norm of health, but also with the origins of human possibilities in general” (own translation p. 275).
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Kraus, A. (2014). Karl Jaspers on Primary Delusional Experiences of Schizophrenics: His Concept of Delusion Compared to That of the DSM. In: Fuchs, T., Breyer, T., Mundt, C. (eds) Karl Jaspers’ Philosophy and Psychopathology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8878-1_8
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