Eugen Bleuler

Paul Eugen Bleuler (1857 to 1939) was a Swiss psychiatrist whose work shaped modern concepts of mental illness. He coined several terms still used in psychiatry and psychology, including schizophrenia, schizoid, autism and depth psychology, and Sigmund Freud praised his term ambivalence. Born in Zollikon near Zurich, he studied medicine in Zurich, trained under Gottlieb Burckhardt, and directed the clinic at Rheinau before returning to the Burghölzli hospital, where he served as director from 1898 to 1927. He introduced the term schizophrenia in a Berlin lecture on 24 April 1908 and developed it in his 1911 study Dementia Praecox, or the Group of Schizophrenias, distinguishing positive from negative and basic from accessory symptoms. He was influenced by Freud and encouraged Carl Jung, while resigning from the psychoanalytic association in 1911. He remains controversial for racist and ableist beliefs and eugenic practices at the Burghölzli.