‘The meaning of the symptom in psychiatry. An overview’,by Hans W. Gruhle (1913)

Abstract

At the beginning of the 20th century there took place in German Psychiatry an important debate on the nature and relative importance of mental symptoms and diseases. Young psychiatrists such as Störring, Ziehen, Gaupp, Hoche, Jaspers and Gruhle challenged, from various perspectives, the nosology of established figures such as Kraepelin and Wernicke. The Classic Text is a commented translation of Gruhle’s 1913 lecture on the meaning of mental symptoms. After concluding that mental symptoms should be used as the epistemological unit of analysis in psychiatry, Gruhle rued the fact that little was yet known about their inner structure. He believed that any account of the latter should include an account of the ‘meaning’ of mental symptoms, that is, of their role in the patient’s total disease. Gruhle found Freud’s account of meaning wanting, but was himself unable to offer a viable alternative. Be that as it may, his concern remains unanswered and is as relevant today as it was in 1913.