On the issue of childhood psychosis

Abstract

The question of the causes of mental disorders in children and the nature of these psychoses has its own history. For a long time, prominent representatives of psychiatry have sought to find in the manifestations of the sick soul of a child or adolescent such features that, in their opinion, are not observed in mental disorders in adults. However, step by step, voices began to be heard in favor of the fact that both the nature and the course of mental illness in children do not differ in any way from those in adults. Just as the specialized literature began to be enriched with descriptions of cases of progressive paralysis in juveniles, there were reports of hysteria in children, catatonia, manic-depressive psychoses, the so-called dementia praecocissima, and almost paranoid forms. The appearance of a child, as Schopenhauer noted, is the appearance of a definite individuality, of a well-defined character. With every child a special world is born.

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