[By way of introduction: where are we with schizophrenia today?].

Abstract

We are still far from a global understanding of the schizophrenic processes. A quick overall view of the concept modifications is to be considered simultaneously with the evolution of the psychiatrical institutions and the psychiatrical new knowledges. Will the schizophrenical vulnerability concept help us? Nobody knows. A comprehension of the pathological process is due to the fact that we know little about the psychical functioning prior to the affection development. Nothing tells us it is so "normal". The act that this process appears during the adolescence when new desires and projects emerge makes wonder if the processes elaborated during the latency period could have prepared the subject to this reorganization of his personality.