Lauretta Bender, Panel Discussion on Evidence for Non-Psychogenic Origins of Psychoses, New York Neurological Society and Section of Neurology and Psychiatry of the New York Society of Medicine, March 10, 1953, Box 8, Folder 10. Courtesy of the Brooklyn College Archives and Special Collections, The Papers of Dr. Lauretta Bender.
Even during the period when psychogenesis was taken most seriously by professionals, there were dissenting voices. In these notes for a 1953 panel discussion, psychiatrist Lauretta Bender maintained that genetic and physiological causes at “the biological core of the organism” were the most significant factors differentiating childhood psychosis or schizophrenia from developmental disorders with psychogenic origins. At Bellevue Hospital, 626 children had been diagnosed with childhood schizophrenia between 1934 and 1951.
[embeddoc url=”https://blogs.uoregon.edu/autismhistoryproject/files/2018/11/Bender-NY-Neurological-Society-1297rg1.pdf” download=”all” viewer=”google” ]