Surname:

Schneider

First name:

Kurt

Era:

20th century

Field of expertise:

Psychiatry

Place of birth:

Crailsheim (DEU)

* 07.01.1887

† 27.10.1967

German psychiatrist and psychopathologist.

Kurt Schneider (1887-1967) was born in Crailsheim, Kingdom of Württemberg. He studied medicine in Berlin and Tübingen and received his doctorate in 1912 for a dissertation on the psychopathology of Korsakoff’s psychosis (Beitrag zur Psychopathologie der Korsakowschen Psychose). After completing his residency at the municipal hospital of Cologne-Lindenthal under Gustav Aschaffenburg, he obtained the formal qualification for a professorship (habilitation) in 1919 and was appointed associate professor of psychiatry at Cologne University in 1922. In 1927, Schneider married Hedwig von Recklinghausen, the daughter of a lord [of the manor]. In 1931, he became director of the clinical department at the German Psychiatric Research Institute in Munich and also assumed the post of chief physician of the psychiatric department at the municipal hospital Munich-Schwabing. He served as a senior physician and psychiatric consultant for the German armed forces in WW2. After the war, he was invited to the University of Heidelberg where he was appointed chair of psychiatry and neurology in 1946 and dean of the medical school in 1951. Kurt Schneider became emeritus in 1955 and died two years later in Heidelberg, at age 70.

Theoretical contributions

In addition to his doctorate in medicine, Schneider also obtained a doctorate in philosophy with his 1921 dissertation on the phenomenology of love and sympathy, supervised by Max Scheler (Pathopsychologische Beiträge zur psychologischen Phänomenologie von Liebe und Mitfühlen). Following the tradition of phenomenological psychiatry (Karl Jaspers), he sought to capture the patients’ subjective experiences in a descriptive and analytical perspective. His 1923 classic Psychopathische Persönlichkeiten (The Psychopathic Personalities) strongly influenced the development of current classifications of personality disorders (ICD, DSM). Schneider was also concerned with differentiating schizophrenia from other forms of psychosis. In 1938, he introduced his concept of “first-rank symptoms” (i.a., delusional perception, auditory hallucinations of voices, delusions of control and influence) as opposed to rather unspecific “second-rank symptoms” (other forms of hallucinations and delusional ideas). Suggesting certainty in diagnosing schizophrenia, this concept earned him international reputation. His main work, Klinische Psychopathologie, published in 1950, presented the “triadic system” of clinical psychopathology, a concise but rather simplifying and now outdated nosology of mental disorders. He distinguished between psychoses with physical causes (e.g., delirium) and the so-called “endogenous psychosis”, like schizophrenia, the physical causes of which are just not yet known. A third group comprised “variations of mental experience” (e.g., neuroses).

Schneider’s professional involvement during the Nazi regime remains to be fully elucidated. Dirk Blasius (1994: 160) describes him as representing “a type of psychiatrist who kept political distance but still have to bear the historical responsibility for their silence in the face of the Nazi crimes” (our translation).

Awards

1966: Golden Kraepelin Medal.

Literature

Blasius, D. (1991): Psychiatrischer Mord in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus. Perspektiven und Befunde. In: C. Vanja, M. Vogt: Euthanasie in Hadamar. Die nationalsozialistische Vernichtungspolitik in hessischen Anstalten. Kassel: Landeswohlfahrtsverband, pp. 51-58.

Blasius, D. (1994): Einfache Seelenstörung. Geschichte der deutschen Psychiatrie 1800-1945. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer.

Bürgy, M. (2009): Zur Geschichte und Phänomenologie des Psychose-Begriffs. Eine Heidelberger Perspektive (1913-2008). In: Der Nervenarzt 80, (5), pp. 584-592.

Bürgy, M. (2010): Zur Psychopathologie der Ich-Störungen. Geschichte und Phänomenologie. In: Der Nervenarzt 81, (9), pp. 1097-1107.

Forsbach, R. (2011): Die 68er und die Medizin. Gesundheitspolitik und Patientenverhalten in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (1960-2010). Bonn: V&R unipress.

Huber, G. (2007): Schneider, Kurt. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie, Vol. 23. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 300-301.

Jaspers, K. (1913): Allgemeine Psychopathologie. Berlin: Springer.

Krahl, A., M. Schifferdecker (1998): Max Scheler und Kurt Schneider. Wissenschaftlicher Einfluß und persönliche Begegnung. In: Fortschritte der Neurologie und Psychiatrie 66, (2), pp. 94-100.

Kranz, H. (1968): In Memoriam Kurt Schneider. In: Archiv für Psychiatrie und Zeitschrift für die gesamte Neurologie 211, (1), pp. 1-6.

Schneider, K. (1912): Über einige klinisch-psychologische Untersuchungsmethoden und ihre Ergebnisse. Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Psychopathologie der Korsakowschen Psychose. Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung des Grades Doctor rerum medicarum des Fachbereichs Humanmedizin der Medizinischen Fakultät Tübingen.

Schneider, K. (1918): Schizophrene Kriegspsychosen. In: Zeitschrift für die gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie 43, (1), pp. 420-429.

Schneider, K. (1919): Studien über Persönlichkeit und Schicksal eingeschriebener Prostituierter. Habilitationsschrift zur Erlangung der Venia legendi des Fachbereichs Humanmedizin der Universität Köln.

Schneider, K. (1922): Versuch über die Arten der Verständlichkeit. In: Zeitschrift für die gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie 75, (1), pp. 323-327.

Schneider, K. (1922a): Der Dichter und der Psychopathologe. Cologne: Rheinland-Verlag.

Schneider, K. (1923): Die psychopathischen Persönlichkeiten. (Handbuch der Psychiatrie. Spezieller Teil; Sect. 7, Part 1). Leipzig: Deuticke.

Schneider, K. (1925): Wesen und Erfassung des Schizophrenen. In: Zeitschrift für die gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie 99, (1), pp. 542-547.

Schneider, K. (1926): Die phänomenologische Richtung in der Psychiatrie. In: Philosophischer Anzeiger 1, pp. 382-404.

Schneider, K. (1927): Die Bedeutung der phänomenologischen Forschungsrichtung für die klinische Psychiatrie. In: Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie 85, pp. 107-109.

Schneider, K. (1939): Psychischer Befund und psychiatrische Diagnose. Leipzig: Thieme.

Schneider, K. (1946): Klinische Psychopathologie. Stuttgart: Thieme.

Wertheimer, W. (2008): Kurt Schneider – Leiter der Klinischen Abteilung des Kaiser-Wilhelm-Instituts für Psychiatrie im Schwabinger Krankenhaus. In: I. Macek (ed.): Ausgegrenzt – entrechtet – deportiert. Schwabing und Schwabinger Schicksale 1933 bis 1945. Munich: Volk-Verlag, pp. 443 - 447.

Wulff, E. (1972): Psychopathie? – Soziopathie?. In: Das Argument 14, (1), pp. 62-78.

Julian Schwarz