Emil Kraepelin

views updated

Emil Kraepelin

1856-1926

German psychiatrist, a specialist in diagnosis, who developed the classification of mental disorders that still serves as the basis of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) and the World Health Organization's International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10). He discovered and named several psychoses and neuroses, including manic depression (now called bipolar disorder) and dementia praecox (now called schizophrenia).

More From encyclopedia.com