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Under the general title of stereotypies have been included a heterogeneous group of movements, attitudes or utterances, recurring in identical form often over long periods, loosely bound together by the fact that they appear to be meaningless and purposeless under the circumstances in which they occur. In this monograph, Kläsi reviews the somewhat scanty literature, details the study of a series of cases and then draws conclusions which will go far toward bringing order and precision into this obscure field. The facts are presented in simple form, and the author carefully refrains from dogmatic conclusions or fanciful speculations. The book is well written and constitutes a real contribution to psychopathology.
Kläsi reserves the term stereotypy for recurring acts or attitudes which are autonomous, do not express a mood and are not consonant with the facts of reality. They are thus essentially schizophrenic. To be differentiated from them are: (1) Repetitions