Developmental Analysis of Schizophrenia in Identical Twins

Abstract

Although the psychiatric literature abounds with actuarial accounts of schizophrenia in siblings and twins, reports of detailed study of such cases are much rarer. We wish to report such a set of twins, who have been subjected to extensive psychiatric and psychological study, with particular emphasis on their interaction. The twins, 36-year-old Negro males, were given not only a standard battery of psychological tests, consisting of the Rorschach, Thematic Apperception Test, Sentence Completion Test, Draw-A-Person, WAIS and MMPI, but each was, in addition, requested to predict how the other might respond to several of the same tests. Similarly, each twin was asked to reflect on and interpret the fantasy material produced by the other. As expected, there was a great deal of dramatic similarity in their responses, so much so that it tended to obscure the dissimilarities in their behaviors. The similarities between these