THE CONCURRENCE of mental illness in two or more members of the same family has long posed a problem of concern to psychiatry. In an older era, this problem was investigated almost exclusively from the point of view of the psychoses. Studies of heredity and of folie à deux best exemplify this older vantage point. More recently, the intrafamily conflicts giving birth to the psychoneuroses have emerged into the sunlight of objective inquiry. Psychoses and psychoneuroses have rarely been considered together, however. This paper reports a family of which at least 4, and perhaps 6, members were psychotic and stresses the effect of this knowledge in causing a psychoneurosis in another sibling, a soldier. The relation of psychoses and psychoneuroses is discussed from the standpoint of nomenclature, traditions and basic conceptions.
REPORT OF A CASE
A soldier aged 28 was admitted to the psychiatric division of a convalescent hospital in