‘The schizophrenic basic mood (self-disorder)’, by Hans W Gruhle (1929)

During the first half of the twentieth century, German psychiatry came to consider ‘Ich-Störungen’, best translated as self-disorders, to be important features of schizophrenia. The present text is a translation of a chapter by the German psychiatrist Hans Gruhle, which is extraordinarily clear and emblematic for this research line. Published in 1929, it was part of a book co-written with Josef Berze, The Psychology of Schizophrenia (concerning its subjectivity). Gruhle claims that the essential core of schizophrenia is of an affective nature, a ‘mood’ manifesting itself as self-disorder, an unstable, incomplete pre-reflective self-awareness. His impact on contemporary psychiatry was probably limited due to his confrontational style, but this text has great significance for the modern revival of phenomenological research in schizophrenia.