The schizophrenia with premorbid asociality (SPA) syndrome is reviewed and its prognosis, response to psychopharmacologic agents, and the hypothesized role of minimal brain damage in its origin is discussed.
In order to determine the relationship of a childhood history of scapegoating and the later behavioral phenomenon of being scapegoated during adolescence to a diagnosis of SPA, 42 hospitalized adolescent boys were studied. Nurses and a psychologist rated ward behavior and childhood histories for evidences of scapegoating.
Nurses judged extensive scapegoating during psychiatric hospitalization in those patients diagnosed as having SPA. A childhood history of scapegoating is useful in predicting a diagnosis of SPA only if there is also evidence of scapegoating during psychiatric hospitalization in adolescence.