Karl Leonhard (21 March 1904 – 23 April 1988) was a German

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...

who was a student and collaborator of

Karl Kleist Karl Kleist (born 31 January 1879 in Mulhouse, Alsace, died 26 December 1960) was a German neurologist and psychiatrist who made notable advances in descriptive psychopathology and neuropsychology. Kleist coined the terms unipolar (‘einpolig’) ...

, 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 classification of psychotic illnesses called

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 that ...

. His work covered

psychology Psychology is the science, scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immens ...

psychotherapy Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase happiness, and overcome pro ...

biological psychiatry Biological psychiatry or biopsychiatry is an approach to psychiatry that aims to understand mental disorder in terms of the biological function of the nervous system. It is interdisciplinary in its approach and draws on sciences such as neuroscie ...

and biological psychology. Moreover, he created a classification of

nonverbal communication Nonverbal communication (NVC) is the transmission of messages or signals through a nonverbal platform such as eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, posture, and body language. It includes the use of social cues, kinesics, distance ( pr ...

Life

He was born at Edelsfeld in

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...

as the sixth of eleven children, his father being a

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

minister. His medical education (at

Erlangen Erlangen (; East Franconian: ''Erlang'', Bavarian: ''Erlanga'') is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 116,062 inha ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

and

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

) was completed in 1928 and he worked as a physician at psychiatric hospitals in

, then a year later

Gabersee Gabersee is a borough of the town Wasserburg am Inn in Bavaria in Germany. Gabersee was the site of a post World War II American sector displaced person camp. It is the birthplace of Carl Troll, and home to a psychiatric hospital Psychiatric ...

and from 1936

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...

, to which last he was called by Karl Kleist. During the period of the

Third Reich Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

in order to save his patients from being killed by means of the

T-4 Euthanasia Program (German, ) was a campaign of mass murder by involuntary euthanasia in Nazi Germany. The term was first used in post-war trials against doctors who had been involved in the killings. The name T4 is an abbreviation of 4, a street address of t ...

, he stopped making diagnoses that would endanger a patient. He became a professor at

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...

in 1944 and a professor at

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits in ...

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 one of Europe's largest university hospitals, affiliated with Humboldt University and Free University Berlin. With numerous Collaborative Research C ...

Hospital linked to the

Humboldt University Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiati ...

East Berlin East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as West Berlin. From 13 August 1961 u ...

. He wanted to move back to

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 ...

in the 1960s, but was refused permission by the

East German East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

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 Professor Helmut Beckmann (22 May 1940 – 3 September 2006) was a German psychiatrist. He was one of the founders of neurodevelopmental theory of schizophrenia and biologically-based psychiatry in Germany. Beckmann's major scientific interest ...

(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 Frank James Fish (26 May 1917 – 13 June 1968) was the first professor of psychiatry at the University of Liverpool, and prior to that a senior lecturer in psychiatry at the University of Edinburgh. His publications helped bring the German tra ...

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 Diagnosis, diagnostic tool for epidemiology, health management and clinical purposes. The ICD is maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO), which is the directing and c ...

or DSM criteria. Psychosis will in general appear as an

affective disorder Affect, in psychology, refers to the underlying experience of feeling, emotion or mood. History The modern conception of affect developed in the 19th century with Wilhelm Wundt. The word comes from the German ''Gefühl'', meaning "feeling." ...

(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 (SZA, SZD or SAD) is a mental disorder characterized by abnormal thought processes and an unstable mood. This diagnosis is made when the person has symptoms of both schizophrenia (usually psychosis) and a mood disorder: ...

The Classification of Psychosis by Leonhard

Leonhard is well known for his classification of psychosis, based on the teamwork involving himself, his mentor

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 Leonhard
in
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