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Ernst Kretschmer | |
|---|---|
 Ernst Kretschmer | |
| Born | 8 October 1888 |
| Died | 8 February 1964 (aged 75) |
| Known for | Typology |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Psychiatry |
| Institutions | Marburg University |
Ernst Kretschmer (8 October 1888 – 8 February 1964) was a Germanpsychiatrist who researched the human constitution and established atypology.
Kretschmer was born inWüstenrot nearHeilbronn. He attended Cannstatt Gymnasium, one of the oldest Latin schools inStuttgart area. From 1906 to 1912 he studiedtheology,medicine, andphilosophy at the universities of Tübingen,Munich andHamburg. From 1913 he was assistant ofRobert Gaupp in Tübingen, where he received his habilitation in 1918. He continued as assistant medical director until 1926. exactly.
In 1926 he became the director of the psychiatric clinic atMarburg University.
Kretschmer was a founding member of theInternational General Medical Society for Psychotherapy (AÄGP) which was founded on 12 January 1927. He was the president of AÄGP from 1929. In 1933 he resigned from the AÄGP for political reasons.
After he resigned from the AÄGP, he started to support theSS and signed the "Vow of allegiance of the professors of the German universities and high-schools toAdolf Hitler and theNational Socialistic state." (German:"Bekenntnis der Professoren an den deutschen Universitäten und Hochschulen zu Adolf Hitler und dem nationalsozialistischen Staat").[1]
From 1946 until 1959, Kretschmer was the director of the psychiatric clinic of theUniversity of Tübingen. He died, aged 75, inTübingen.[2]
Kretschmer was the first to describe thepersistent vegetative state which has also been calledKretschmer's syndrome. Another medical term coined after him isKretschmer's sensitiveparanoia.[3] This classification has the merit of singling out "a type of paranoia that was unknown" prior to Kretschmer, and which "does not resemble the stereotypical image [...] of sthenic paranoia".[4] Furthermore, between 1915 and 1921 he developed a differential diagnosis between schizophrenia and manic depression.
Kretschmer is also known for developing (in the first quarter of the 20th century) a classification system that can be seen as one of the earliest exponents of a constitutional (the total plan or philosophy on which something is constructed) approach. He based his classification system on four mainbody-types:
The concept of two great psychopathological types ofmanic-depressive or 'circular' insanity anddementia praecox (i. e.schizophrenia) was developed byEmil Kraepelin (1856–1926).
Kretschmer associated each of his body types with certain personality traits and, in a more extreme form, with differentmental disorders. He wrote that there is only a weak relation betweenschizophrenia and pyknic body type on the one hand, and between Circulars (with the tendency to circular type of manic-depressive psychosis) and asthenics, athletics, and dysplastics on the other.[5] Among people with schizophrenia, the asthenico–athletic types are very prevalent.[5] Kretschmer believed that pyknic persons were friendly, interpersonally dependent, and gregarious. In a more extreme version of these traits, this would mean for example that the obese are predisposed toward manic-depressive illness. Thin types were associated withintroversion and timidity. This was seen as a milder form of the negative symptoms exhibited by people with withdrawn schizophrenia. However, the idea of the association of body types with personality traits is no longer influential inpersonality psychology.[citation needed]
The essential characteristic of the asthenic type, in Kretschmer's words, is "a deficiency in thickness combined with an average unlessened length". The deficiency is present in all parts of body:muscle,bone,neck,face, trunk,extremities, and in all the tissues (skin, bone, fat, muscles and vessel system).[5] The average weight as well as the other body measurements are below the general value for males.[5]
An asthenic man would be lean and narrowly built, with narrowshoulders, thin muscles, delicately boned hands, and a narrow, long, flat chest, on which one can usually see theribs.[5]
Asthenic females are not only thin, but also have a shortheight.[5] In their general appearance they are the same as asthenic men.[5]
| Principal average measurements of asthenic type[5] | ||
|---|---|---|
| Men | Women | |
| Height(cm) | 168.4 | 153.8 |
| Weight(kg) | 50.5 | 32.8 |
| Width of shoulders(cm) | 35.5 | 44.4 |
| Chest(cm) | 84.1 | 77.7 |
| Stomach(cm) | 74.1 | 67.7 |
| Hips(cm) | 84.7 | 82.2 |
| Forearm (circum.;cm) | 23.5 | 20.4 |
| Hand (circum.;cm) | 19.7 | 18.0 |
| Calf (circum.;cm) | З0.0 | 27.7 |
| Length of leg | 89.4 | 79.2 |
Kretschmer's male athletic type is characterized by the strong development of themusculature,skeleton, and skin.[5]
We have, therefore, in the clearest cases the following general impression: a middle-sized to tall man, with a superbchest, wide projecting shoulders ("particularly the hypertrophied shoulders" as Kretschmer said), firmstomach, magnificent legs.[5] The expression "hypertrophied" means a development which oversteps the average, not in the sense of a pathological disturbance.[5]
The athletic type amongfemales corresponds to the male form.[5] The certain characteristic deviation is the development offat, it's rich, but not electively abnormal as with pyknics.[5] Besides these athletic-type women with feminine rounded figures, there are also those women who have outstanding musculature in body and face. In many cases, athletic-type women are actually masculine in muscle relief.[5]
| Principal average measurements of athletic type[5] | ||
|---|---|---|
| Men | Women | |
| Height(cm) | 170.0 | 163.1 |
| Weight(kg) | 62.9 | 61.7 |
| Width of shoulders(cm) | 39.1 | 37.4 |
| Chest(cm) | 91.7 | 86.0 |
| Stomach(cm) | 79.6 | 95.8 |
| Forearm (circum.;cm) | 91.5 | 24.2 |
| Hand (circum.;cm) | 21.7 | 20.0 |
| Calf (circum.;cm) | 33.1 | 31.7 |
| Length of leg | 90.9 | 85.0 |
Kretschmer's pyknic type is characterized by the peripheral development of the body cavities (breast,head, andstomach), and a tendency to a distribution offat about thetorso.[5] They also have a more graceful construction of the motor apparatus (limbs and shoulders).[5]
The characteristics of the well-developed cases include: rounded figure, middle height, a soft broad face on a short massive neck, sitting between the shoulders, shoulders are not broad; soft, rounded, and displaying littlemuscle relief limbs, thehands soft, rather wide and short.[5]
The pyknic type tends emphatically to a covering of fat.[5] Theobesity of the pyknic is restricted within moderate limits for the most part. The female pyknics' covering of fat is more strongly concentrated over thehips andchest.[5]
The ratio of chest to shoulder of the female pyknics is the same as in the male pyknics.[5]
| Principal average measurements of pyknic type[5] | ||
|---|---|---|
| Men | Women | |
| Height(cm) | 167.8 | 156.5 |
| Weight(kg) | 68.0 | 56.3 |
| Width of shoulders(cm) | 36.9 | 34.3 |
| Chest(cm) | 94.5 | 86.0 |
| Stomach(cm) | 88.8 | 78.7 |
| Hips(cm) | 92.0 | 94.2 |
| Forearm (circum.;cm) | 25.5 | 22.4 |
| Hand (circum.;cm) | 20.7 | 18.6 |
| Calf (circum.;cm) | 33.2 | 31.2 |
| Length of leg | 87.4 | 80.5 |
| Physical and psychic dispositions[5] | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Circular | Schizophrenics | ||||||
| Asthenic | • | • | • | • | • | 4 | 81 |
| Athletic | • | • | • | • | • | 3 | 31 |
| Asthenico–athletic mixed | • | • | • | • | • | 2 | 11 |
| Pyknic | • | • | • | • | • | 58 | 2 |
| Pyknic mixture | • | • | • | • | • | 14 | 3 |
| Dysplastic | • | • | • | • | • | — | 34 |
| Deformed and uncataloguable forms | • | • | • | • | • | 4 | 13 |
| Total | 85 | 175 | |||||
Kretschmer divided the temperaments into the two "constitutional groups":schizothymic, which contain a "psychæsthetic proportion" betweensensitive andcold poles, andcyclothymes which contain a "diathetic" proportion between raised (happy) andsad.[5] The modern term for light version of 'circular' insanity iscyclothymia. Psychic tempo of schizothymic people is between unstable and tenacious and they have alternation mode of feeling and thought, and cyclothymes psychic tempo is between mobile and comfortable.[5] Schizothymic's psychomotility is often inadequate to stimulus: inhibited, restrained, lamed, stiff, etc., and psychomotility of cyclothymes is adequate to stimulus and natural.[5] Cyclothymes are often pyknics, schizothymes – athletic, asthenic, dysplastic, and their mixtures.[5]
The Schizoids consist of thehyperæsthetic (sensitive) andanæsthetic (cold) characters.
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