Karl Leonhard (21 March 1904 – 23 April 1988) was a German
psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry. Psychiatrists are physicians who evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments or strictly ...
who was a student and collaborator of
Karl Kleist, who himself stood in the tradition of
Carl Wernicke
Carl (or Karl) Wernicke (; ; 15 May 1848 – 15 June 1905) was a German physician, anatomist, psychiatrist and neuropathologist. He is known for his influential research into the pathological effects of specific forms of encephalopathy and also ...
. With Kleist, he created a complex
nosology
Nosology () is the branch of medical science that deals with the classification of diseases. Fully classifying a medical condition requires knowing its cause (and that there is only one cause), the effects it has on the body, the symptoms th ...
of psychotic illnesses. His work covered
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
,
psychotherapy
Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of Psychology, psychological methods, particularly when based on regular Conversation, personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase hap ...
,
biological psychiatry
Biological psychiatry or biopsychiatry is an approach to psychiatry that aims to understand mental disorder in terms of the biology, biological function of the nervous system. It is interdisciplinary in its approach and draws on sciences such as ...
and
biological psychology
Behavioral neuroscience, also known as biological psychology, biopsychology, or psychobiology,[Psychobi ...](_blank)
. Moreover, he created a classification of
nonverbal communication
Nonverbal communication is the transmission of messages or signals through a nonverbal platform such as eye contact (oculesics), body language (kinesics), social distance (proxemics), touch (Haptic communication, haptics), voice (prosody (lingui ...
.
Life
He was born at
Edelsfeld
Edelsfeld is a municipality in the district of Amberg-Sulzbach in Bavaria, Germany.
Geography
Apart from Edelsfeld the municipality consists of the following villages:
*Alternsthof
*Bernricht
*Birkhof
*Boden
*Eberhardsbühl
*Gassenhof
*Kalchsreut ...
in the
Kingdom of Bavaria
The Kingdom of Bavaria ( ; ; spelled ''Baiern'' until 1825) was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1806 and continued to exist until 1918. With the unification of Germany into the German Empire in 1871, the kingd ...
as the sixth of eleven children, his father being a
Protestant minister. His medical education (at
Erlangen
Erlangen (; , ) is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 119,810 inhabitants (as of 30 September 2024), it is the smalle ...
,
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
and
Munich
Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
) was completed in 1928 and he worked as a physician at psychiatric hospitals in
Erlangen
Erlangen (; , ) is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 119,810 inhabitants (as of 30 September 2024), it is the smalle ...
, then a year later
Gabersee and from 1936
Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...
, to which last he was called by Karl Kleist. During the period of the
Third Reich
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...
in order to save his patients from being killed by means of the
T-4 Euthanasia Program, he stopped making diagnoses that would endanger a patient.
He became a professor at
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...
in 1944 and a professor at
Erfurt
Erfurt () is the capital (political), capital and largest city of the Central Germany (cultural area), Central German state of Thuringia, with a population of around 216,000. It lies in the wide valley of the Gera (river), River Gera, in the so ...
in the Soviet zone of Germany in 1954. In 1957 he became director of the psychiatric department at the
Charité
The Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Charité – Berlin University of Medicine; ) is Europe's List of hospitals by capacity, largest university hospital, affiliated with Humboldt University of Berlin, Humboldt University and the Free ...
Hospital linked to the
Humboldt University
The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public university, public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany.
The university was established by Frederick William III of Prussia, Frederick W ...
in
East Berlin
East Berlin (; ) was the partially recognised capital city, capital of East Germany (GDR) from 1949 to 1990. From 1945, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet occupation sector of Berlin. The American, British, and French se ...
. He wanted to move back to
West Germany
West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...
in the 1960s, but was refused permission by the
East German
East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from its formation on 7 October 1949 until its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, it was generally vie ...
authorities. As compensation he got increased support for his scientific work. During his lifetime he interviewed more than 2000 psychotic patients, latterly with Dr Sieglinde von Trostorff. He died in East Berlin in 1988.
According to
Helmut Beckmann (see "Books" below), editors of Western journals rejected his papers because "they were not in conformity with the standard practice of Anglo-American psychiatry and also because he pursued without compromise his own path derived from his findings." Most of his work was not translated into English. However summaries of Leonhard's views were included by
Frank Fish in his "Schizophrenia" of 1962 (2nd edition 1976 ) and "Clinical Psychopathology" of 1967 (2nd edition 1985 ) which were widely read, if not understood, in their day.
Today diagnosis for psychotic patients and mentally or otherwise ill persons are most commonly placed by
ICD
The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is a globally used medical classification that is used in epidemiology, health management and clinical diagnostics, diagnosis. The ICD is maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO), which ...
or
DSM criteria.
Psychosis will in general appear as an
affective disorder
Affect, in psychology, is the underlying experience of feeling, emotion, attachment, or mood. It encompasses a wide range of emotional states and can be positive (e.g., happiness, joy, excitement) or negative (e.g., sadness, anger, fear, di ...
(e.g. psychotic depression), a psychotic disorder (e.g. catatonic type of schizophrenia) or a mixture of both types, as evident in the
schizoaffective disorder
Schizoaffective disorder is a mental disorder characterized by symptoms of both schizophrenia (psychosis) and a mood disorder, either bipolar disorder or depression. The main diagnostic criterion is the presence of psychotic symptoms for at leas ...
.
The Classification of Psychosis by Leonhard
Leonhard is well known for his classification of psychosis, based on the teamwork involving himself, his mentor
Karl Kleist and fellow Kleist student
Edda Neele. The classification is sometimes referred to as the ''Kleist-Leonhard classification system''.
[Teichmann G. The influence of Karl Kleist on the nosology of Karl Leonhard. ''Psychopathology''. 1990;23(4-6):267-76.]
* Clinical Pictures of Phasic Psychoses (without Cycloid Psychoses)
** ''
Manic-Depressive Illness''
** ''Pure Melancholia and Pure Mania''
*** Pure Melancholia
*** Pure Mania
** ''Pure Depressions and Pure Euphorias''
*** Pure Depressions
**** Agitated Depression
**** Hypochondriacal Depression
**** Self-Tortured Depression
**** Suspicious Depression
**** Apathetic Depression
*** Pure Euphorias
**** Unproductive Euphoria
**** Hypochondriacal Euphoria
**** Exalted Euphoria
**** Confabulatory Euphoria
**** Indifferent Euphoria
* The Cycloid Psychosis
** Anxiety-Happiness Psychosis
** Excited-Inhibited Confusion Psychosis
** Hyperkinetic-Akinetic Motility Psychosis
* The Unsystematic Schizophrenias
** Affective Paraphrenia
** Cataphasia (Schizophasia)
** Periodic Catatonia
* The Systematic Schizophrenias
** Simple Systematic Schizophrenias
*** ''Catatonic Forms''
**** Parakinetic Catatonia
**** Manneristic Catatonia
**** Proskinetic Catatonia
**** Negativistic Catatonia
**** Speech-Prompt Catatonia
**** Sluggish Catatonia
*** ''Hebephrenic Forms''
**** Foolish Hebephrenia
**** Eccentric Hebephrenia
**** Shallow Hebephrenia
**** Autistic Hebephrenia
*** ''Paranoid Forms''
**** Hypochondrical Paraphrenia
**** Phonemic Paraphrenia
**** Incoherrent Paraphrenia
**** Fantastic Paraphrenia
**** Confabulatory Paraphrenia
**** Expansive Paraphrenia
** Combined Systematic Schizophrenias
*** ''Combined Systematic Catatonias''
*** ''Combined Systematic Hebephrenias''
*** ''Combined Systematic Paraphrenias''
* Early Childhood Schizophrenias
Books
* ''Die defektschizophrenen Krankheitsbilder'', Leipzig: Thieme 1936
''Classification of Endogenous Psychoses and their Differentiated Etiology'' 2nd edition edited by Helmut Beckmann. New York/Wien: Springer-Verlag 1999
* ''Der menschliche Ausdruck in Mimik, Gestik und Phonik'', Leipzig: Barth 1969 - 3 Aufl. Wuerzburg 1997.
Notes
References
Internationale Wernicke-Kleist-Leonhard Gesellschaft
PsychiatrieOnline.org* Julian Schwarz
Biography of Karl Leonhardin
Biographical Archive of Psychiatry (BIAPSY)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leonhard, Karl
German psychiatrists
1904 births
1988 deaths
Bipolar disorder researchers
20th-century German physicians
Scientists from Frankfurt
Physicians of the Charité